The General: Worlds At War
by Sapper69
Summary: Continues TG: WWIII. Earth is in World War Three as the aliens and virual forms begin to emerge. The EWCU begins to fall apart and humanity begins to take losses on the fronts. This one is told from two sides.
1. Filling The Craving

© 2006 All Rights Reserved.Sapper69

_June 16th, 2552, 5:42 PM _

"We're getting wasted here!" The radio screamed out to me in panic as I walked to it in the dark, cold, and unforgiving night.

I continued to walk though the night, my M90 shotgun at the ready for the creature I had seen just before killing General Max.  
"There's to many! They came out of nowh!..." A explosion filled the background, cutting the radio into static.

I soon found myself stopped just before the dead bodies before me. The fire that danced and laughed at me with its crackling chuckle cut slightly though the night, giving the bodies a helish look in their faces. I looked around, bodies where everywhere. The air smelt of blood, decay, and smoke. The smell made my eyes water up, almost like an onion would, except the smell made me realize just how tired I was of war. Death layed out before me, swiming in is own pool of blood. I had seen it before, and had given it to others. World War Three took alot out of me, but to now have an alien invasion, it broke me. There was only so much a man could take. Trying to bring it to reality was hard, to believe that the moment mankind feared was happening.

I walked among the dead and collected the name tags of the fallen soldiers of my army. I also found myself collecting the tags of the EWCU military as well. I began to feel as though they wheren't the bad guys. There was obviously much, much more that they knew and we didn't. I began to feel as though we where the bad guys. I put the name tags into a empty pouch on my belt holster and looked around for the creature, it was still out of sight.

My throat began to hurt. The wind grew cold and chilled my throat when I breathed it, also making it feel dry a bit. I looked around and noticed the cave entrence where Max had walked out with his guards. I stared at it. I began to wonder if I could find some information inside. I craved for information, it was the reason I stayed behind when the evacuation Pelican came in to pick up the wounded. I wanted and needed to know what was going on, it was one of those things I felt I had to know before I died, now that it was happening.

I started for the cave, stepping in very slowly, gun at the ready for any possible EWCU troops that could of stayed inside. All checked out clear.

The cave curved off to the right when entering and was long and thin, enough for four people to stand side by side thin and about twenty feet long. Chairs where lined up along the sides of the cave, a desk was at the end and faced the entrence. Lights where attached to the roof and headed down in a line in the middle of the cave, stopping above the desk. The desk was filled with papers, and a small container was on its side, spilling something among the papers. I walked up to the desk and sat my shotgun on the ground, leaning up against it.

"Oh my god!" A voice yelled at the entrence of the tunnel, causing me to grab my gun and snap my body to take aim down the way.  
Nothing was there.  
"Fort Warsworth has been taken! They've taken the main point!" The voice yelled out.

It was the radio. The signal had been caught again. I stood there, looking at the entrence. My heart raced, I could hear it beating in my ears. I managed to calm myself down and focus out the pleas for help coming from the man on the radio. I randomly picked up a paper. It was titled 'Security'. I read it:

"General Max. It is believed that the Americans may know of your current location in the mounds. I believe that an attack may come soon on your position. I highly recommend withdrawing from the area or sending a troop from the French Division in other places of Antarctica to step of security. -Sincerely, your son, Andy."  
The paper was stamped 'Denied C1901'.

I crumbled the paper up in my hands with anger. Just thinking of Andy made me mad. He was nothing but a traitor, a annoying spy, and it made me more angery to think that he was a good friend of mine. I threw the paper to the ground and took in a deep breathe and forced away my thoughts of Andy.

I looked over the table again. Picking up papers and looking at their titles, tossing them aside if the titles seemed to show little improtance of the paper. I soon came across one titled 'Protectors' and read it:

"It is known that the explosion in Antarctica was from them, there arrival to our doomed planet. Upon our arrival to the scene with troop 1-24 of the Russian division, a fight did break out between us and them. We engaged until munitions where gone and they had rushed and taken our lines all around. Many where executed on the scene, some where spared. That was twenty years ago and it is unknown why they acted of such a nature or know where they currently are now. But it does seem that the details of the prophecies are coming true and are very clear as for now World War Three has been started and our next phase of action may continue. I believe that the next move can be foreseen with the prophecies by searching for key features in them. I recomend a invasional search into Brazil for these key features which may help save humanity from the intruders. I also believe a search into Mexico should is necessary if we do not find what we are looking for in Brazil. I ask that an invasion into America be with held until later when it can be more concentrated and executed. I also beli..."

The paper was covered with the substance spilled on it and unreadable the rest of the way down.

I folded the paper and slid it into the pouch containing the dog tags. From there I began my search for more information. I soon came across another important titled paper, it was called 'The Intruders'. I read it:

"The cause of the sickness among my troops and the civilains of Antarctica has just posibly been found. Eariler today a new life form was found. It was found inside of the the stomach of a person. Though the creature was partly destroyed, which is it believed it does on its own in. It is believed that the creature enters the body at obviously low detection, possibly when the victim is asleep. It cuts into the body, killing the nervs around the entry point. Once inside the body, it injects a fluid from it's body into the blood stream, the fluid contains microscopic organisms that head for the brain. The creature takes contol of part of the brain when the organisms reach it. Once taken part of the brain, it somehow manages to heal the wound within minutes afterward, making it unknown to be in the body. The creature soon fights to take control of the body and slowly tries to kill the victim by draining all the fluids from it. It is most common to see the victim vomit a green slime durring this process an..."

I looked away from the paper and began to think of Steve. The last time I saw him, he was vomiting lots of green and slimy liquid, he was infected with this parasite of sorts. I stopped reading at that point and just slid the paper in with the other to be returned to command for information, if there was a command left.

I threw Steve out of my mind. There was still one more paper I had to find. I had to find a paper that covered these prophecies. I began to go though the papers again, thowing many aside that had little importance. I soon came across what I was looking for, a paper titled 'Prophecies of Mankind'. I read it:

"The help of the unexpected will never be enough and will be realized as humanity begins to fall.  
Hidden by dence rainfall and jungle, a gargoyle will show the way.  
It will lead to the ascension of the colossus of the world.  
There the relic of mankind can be found.  
Relic will bring forth the bitter cold of defeat of the invaders and salvation for all of mankind."

The paper left me confused as I slid it in with the others and reached for my gun. It was obviously the most important paper, it was the reason why World War Three had started and how to defend ourselfs from the aliens and the parasites.

I turned and began to head for the cave entrence, stopping at the entrence before exiting when I got there. I checked my ammo and supplise. I had around forty rounds for my shotgun and enough food and water for the next five days if I used my supplise wisely. I stepped out into the cool air. It had grown even colder and the smell of death was stronger. The smoke from the tank made it smell somewhat like fireworks where being set off all around.

I looked around the enviroment. I noticed the sandhill off a small ways before. I decided I would use it to make my way back onto the cliffs that over looked the bunker. From there I could make my way to Fort Containment, it was my only hope of surviving. I started walking off into the night for the sandhill. It felt strange out. It was very quiet also, only the sound of the wind and the small dirt clumps being crushed under my feet as I walked could be heard. It was kind of nice not hearing the screams of people dieing for a change.

I walked past the tank. It made its last move against me as it exploded a bit inside the cockpit, causing me to jump just a small bit. The flames danced and laughed harder at me than before. It also made me realize that I was going to slow and at this rate, something was bound to happen to me. I looked ahead and began to dash out into the night, leaving the last of World War Three behind me and entered the new war ahead.

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"Just tell him to think back." Jake said again.  
"Just think back?" I answered back with a question.  
We had been going on for a bit now about nothing. Jake didn't seem himself, he seemed to be strugling to just focus on talking and somewhat stay on subject.

"Hidden by dence rainfall and jungle, a gargoyle will show the way." He said again.  
I looked at him confused.  
"What does that mean?" I asked desprately.  
He smiled at me a small bit. "Brazil." He replied.  
I just stood there, looking at him in our world of nothingness.

"Yes, when?" He said randomly.  
I continued to just stare at him.  
"When reality strikes you sudden, I will be a distant memory." He stated to me.  
I gave him another strange look as he quickly faded away.

The world shook under my feet and my side bursted with pain. I grabbed at it with sudden fear and confusion. My eyes shot open to find myself on my back with a net haning medical supplise above me. My hands wheren't even at my side. I could hear people coughing and moaning in pain.   
"Lets move, get them off the dropship before they wake up!" A voice demanded as someone walked by me.  
"Knock them out with some more medicine too!" A diffrent voice demanded as well.

I looked around as best as I could. I was able to figure out that I was laying on the floor of a Pelican, that was all. I also couldn't see Jake.  
"Jake." I said outloud. "Jake, where are you?" I asked confused and as loud as I could.  
Someone soon came up to me, their face suspended above mine.  
"Its going to be okay." He said calmly as he reached around to his side and opened up his pouch.   
"Whos awake?" The voiced called out.  
The medic's head turned away from me. "David Steel sir!" He called back.  
The medic looked back at me and stabbed a needle into my arm and injected a liquid into me. He soon pulled the needle out and put it back in his pouch.

He faded out suddenly and quickly returned to normal.

"Give me a hand?" He said to someone as he hooked his arms under my pits to carry me away, another man squated down and picked up my feet and I was soon being taken out of the Pelican.

I glanced around. Gun emplacements stood on a wall over a gate. Soldiers stood on upper levels above small stores and flood lights filled the area from the roofs.  
"Turf." I said to myself as the world blurred out.


	2. Death Surrounds All

_June 16th, 2552, 6:16 PM _

**Thomas  
**I ran up the dirt hill incline, painting slightly. It took me a second to realize that I was painting twice as fast than I really was. I came up to the top of the incline, just passing a metal wall that extended out a bit onto a bridge which lead over a gap in the ground and off to the bunker. I turned while running, sliding to a stop facing the other way then I was moving. The dirty ground confirmed it. My footsteps and another pair with three toes followed. I stopped sliding and quickly raised my gun and shot randomly into the night.

Its footsteps reapeared on the ground though the body wasn't there, it was invisible. It made its way into cover behind the metal wall at the bridge as I shot at it again. I stood there watching the area closely, waiting for it to come back out as I tried to catch my breath. I had a hard time catching my breath at the moment, it seemed like I was breathing in more air than what actually came in though my air filters on my helmet down by my mouth.

I could hear it. It began to talk in its language to me, it scared me hearing it talk like it did. It was like a chain of a form of onomatopoeia when it talked. I threw my gun around my shoulder with the strap and madly began to climb the sand hill beside me to the cliffs, madly trying to get up as fast as I could in pure fear. It wasn't easy climbing it but I managed to make it to the top and onto the solid ground. I dropped to the ground and caught my breath for a second before forcing myself up to peak over down from the top of the sand hill.

It was coming up the sandhill. I could see the sand being thrown from the hillside and being kicked out from where it's feet should be at. It was halfway up. I raised my gun and took aim down my gunsight.

"Get away from me!" I yelled at it and shot, the sound rang though the canyons.

It came visible, I could see the creature. It looked mad. It extended it's right hand out from the hill and snapped it weirdly. I light emerged from its hand. I let out a scream, put my hands up to my visor to cover my eyes and dropped to the ground rolling around trying to cover my eyes, my gun laying on the ground by me. My eyes burned but I forced myself to a stop and grabed my gun and kneeled down at the top of the hill and looked at the creature.

It was now about three-forths the way up and in its right hand was a glowing blade like weapon, about three feet long. It didn't hurt to look at it now. I took aim as it looked up at me. It began to disapear before me, turning invisible again.  
"Oh no! Your not getting away from my sights again!" I yelled at it as I shot.

The sound of the shot rang though the canyons again as the creature fell from the hillside coming to a full stop as it smashed into the ground. Dust kicked up all around it, hiding it from my sights. I half expected it to be gone when the dust settled, but its body continued to lay there, the blade a few feet from it. Within a minture, a liquid soon emerged from it and onto the ground. I took it as blood or something and figured it was dead.

I let out a sigh of relief and put my weapon around my shoulder and stood up. The wind picked up and the air grew even colder. I could hear the wind greatly picking up as it began to whine. I quickly learned it wasn't the wind as a squadron of longswords thundered by overhead. Dirt kicked up everywhere, blinding me from the rest of the world for a bit. Small dirt clumps pinged off my armor as the force of their flyby made me step back a few feet. The winds they created quickly died down and stopped, I found myself on the ground in the end.

I stood up and looked around. I knew I would have to move fast. The longswords where probaly on a air raid on our new enemies, meaning if I saw the longswords then the enemy may be close. I found the small cliff that I had to get a top to get on the upper area above the bunker. I went to the cliff and tossed my shotgun ontop of it and jumped up, grabing the cliff edge and pulled myself up. I retrieved my shotgun once I made it a top.

I knew I would have to hurry. I couldn't let the enemy find me or I would be killed. I looked for the north star, quickly finding it. I knew Fort Containment was to the east of this position so I redireced myself and began to head east for Fort Containment in the night.

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**David  
**I began to come to again. I found myself awaking to find myself in a room with others, the roof had a blown out hole in it and I was easily able to figure out where I was. I was at Camp Turf, in the sleeping quarters. Enough beds for thirty people, but a thousand men where easily stationed here. I glanced around the room to find all the beds filled with wounded, they where all asleep. Two men walked among us and checked on everyone.

My side began to come to reality also with a rush of pain, causing me to let out a moan.  
"Over here." I heard one of them say.

The two men approched me. One stopped at the end of the cot and another beside me.  
"David Steel." The man at the end of the cot said. "Side wound, hit by a high-powered pistol equiped with small explosive rounds."  
The man beside me turned his attention away from the other man and to me. I looked back at him.   
"That must of hurt comrade." He said. I froze.  
He had a Russian accent and I noticed that he wore the outfit for The Royal Troop.

I began to wonder if they took Camp Turf and I was a wounded POW. I had been trained to fight to the death, even if taken as a prisoner. I extended my hand out toward him as fast as I could, which was slow and shakey. I aimed for his throat, I was going to choke him to death as best as I could. He put his hands out and connected with mine and held them.

"It will be okay comrade." He started. "Well get that bullet out of you durring the operation, you'll be fine."  
I was stunned by what he had said as he put my hand back down beside me.   
"You will be fine and will be back with your friends in no time." He finished.  
I looked away from him and at the roof above me.  
"Lets check the wound." The other man said. I looked over at him.  
"Yes." The Russian said as he slowly began to remove my blankets, tossing them aside a bit when he had them off.

I could already tell how bad it was, I didn't have to look. I could smell.  
"Oh." The Russian said and looked away, waving at the air.  
I could tell easily that my side had become badly infected, the smell was horrid. I tried to look as best as I could. I could only see blood stains in the medical clothing that I had been changed into.

"Get... Get some more coremen. He needs his operation now, no time to wait." The Russian said.  
"Alright." The other man said and he soon exited though a small doorway to my left.  
"Wha-Wa-What happened t-to me?" I asked him.

The Russian looked at me. He had a serious look in his face.  
"You where shot by a high-powered pistol with explosive rounds. The bullet exploded on contact, putting a hole in your side almost big enogh for a tennis ball. The round someone managed to continue on into you. The force of the impact blew a hole clean though and out the other side of you, though the bullet stopped about half way into your body."

I looked at the man amazed and with fear. He was straight up with it, something I wasn't expecting. And the truth scared me drasticly. I even quit noticing that I was in pain from the amount of fear that had just hit me.

The other medic returned with four others. Together they put me onto a mobile bed, pain rushed though me when they picked me up. They appologized though, they didn't have anything left in the camp to numb the wound at the moment. They promised that I would at least be put to sleep for my surgery, unlike a few before me.

I could smell death as I was taken into a diffrent section of the camp. I caught a glimpse of a medic draging a dead body from the operation section of the camp. Fear struck me harder. It alone nummed my body for the moment. I was soon put onto a metal desk, naked. Though washed, it still felt a bit sticky from the blood that had once been on it.

A air mask was placed over my mouth, and the gasy air was soon being pumped out to knock me out. I looked over to my left. A dumpster sat there, a human hand stuck out and hanged on the edge. I watched as someone approched it and shut the door on the hand and began to push the dumpster away. I fell asleep watching him push it away, fuel and matches layed ontop of the dumpster.


	3. A New Front

_June 17th, 2552, 9:29 AM _

**Thomas**

I was forced to stop jogging and slow to a walk again, the cold air hurt my lungs when I breathed in now. The dirt covered ground was gone and was now drowned by snowfall. I had been following the footsteps since I had found them a few hours back. The fight they lead off to ahead wasn't to far now. I could now see the flashes of artillary bombardments in the hills ahead and hear the firey explosions better. I was following the steps of what seemed to be the imprintings of mechanized soldiers and some treds of a few vehicles such as tanks.

I reached for my bottled water to find that it wasn't there. I had forgoten, the last time I stopped to get some food and water from my pouch I had found it missing. I figured it must of come off when the longswords flew by. My stomach growled angerly at me, mad that I had lost the food I carried on me.

I came to a full stop and looked around for any threats. Everything seemed clear so I went ahead and took off my mechanized helmet. Cold air shot down into my armor, chilling all of my body and causing it to shake a bit, but I ignored it. I put my helmet down on the ground and used it as a chair. I picked of a handfull of snow and shoved it into my mouth, letting it melt into water a bit before swallowing it down, picking up another handful and swallowing it down. I sat there, eatting the snow when an Arctic Tern flew by overhead. I stood up and took aim with my gun at it, but thought it over and sat back down.

I had no matches or fueling source to cook it, it would of been no use to me as a food source and would of made me sick eatting it as it was. After eatting alittle more snow, I stood up and snaped my helmet back on and looked at the tracks that lead off to the fight ahead.

I took it that it must of been fragments of the American division that passed by. Fort Containment lay beyond the hills ahead where the battle was taking place. Troops could of been sent off to flank from the rear at the approching enemy force. I believed that I was following possible units that flanked the enemy ahead. I began to walk off. I had to enter the fight to live at this point. I had no supplise, except for eight rounds that where loaded into my shotgun and the gun itself. I had to enter and link up with allied forces and get resupplied.

I found myself begining to jog again. My lungs tried to protest against it, but I ignored the small pain that began to devlop again in them. I found myself jogging for the next three hours to the fight.

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**David**

The operation had done much good for me. I now found myself beging able to walk around and do minor things to help out. I was also forced to wear a medical garment and everytime the wind kicked up, I would have to hold it down to cover myself from everyone. I was assigned to helping the ever increasing wounded that had just come in from front, a new front. I had asked around the wounded when I got the chance, many where so out of it then didn't even know I was asking them something. I only got a small bit of information. I was told by a man that America had launched a nation wide counter attack for the east coast and failed, which is where the wounded where coming from. I had heard Canada was involved with the counter attack as well, though we didn't recieve any of their wounded.

I found myself mixing supplise for bandgeing for the people just getting out of operations.

I worked in the commanders quarters. The camp had become so crowded that it was nearly the only place to work. I worked standing at a table mixing a mixture with another man just outside the surgery area.

I poured the mixture onto a thin piece of plastic to let it harden a small bit, not to the point that it couldn't be wrapped around the wound but enough so that when they put it on, it didn't just slide off either. The other guy was making a medical foam that was put directly into the wound before the bandage was applied. The foam would kill any infections and such things.

After a mintue. I picked up the plastic with the mixture on it and turned and headed for the operation area, the flip flops I wore made an annoying noise everytime I took a step as they smacked the ground.

I found the operation area empty, a man told me that they where doing the current surgeries at the medical tent now that it was open for them. I thanked him for the information and headed down the ramp to the medical tent. I had to cut off to the right to get to the front of the tent, two guards told me to stand back until I was needed.

I stood there and looked into the tent. Two coremen where stiching up a man, I couldn't tell who it was. It looked as though they had entered his stomach.

"I don't get why hes so sick." A medic said as he took off his mouth mask. "Hes perfectly fine yet sick as hell."  
"I know." The other man replied.

I now knew who was on the table, it was Steve.

A guard told me to wait where I was while he told the medics I was here. He talked to them for a second as the medics went though a checklist. I saw the medic nod, though I couldn't hear what they where talking about. The guard emerged from the tent.

"I will take the mixture." He said as he put his gun around his shoulder and extended his hands.

I gave it to him.

"Thank you." He replied and re-entered the tent and gave it to the medics.

I stood there looking into the metal tent at Steve who just laid there.

"Hes only got a little time left." One of the medics said. "I say about a month or two before he's gone."

My eyes opened wide and I took a step forward. The guard stepped in my way.

"You are done here, please leave." He said to me.

I asked him for permission to see the man and told him it was my close friend. He denied it and pointed his gun at me, warning me off for the last time. I took a few steps back, turned, and headed up the ramp back to my post. Tears began to fill my eyes.


	4. Wounded In Equal Hands

_June 17th, 2552, 12:47 PM _

**Thomas**

I stood a top a large hill, overlooking the town in which the fight was taking place. The artillary shelling had stopped by now but I could still hear gunfire in the area. I was waiting a bit for the fighting to die down before I entered with such low supplise and with such fatigue.

The place seemed more like a valley. The hill I was on cut down into the edge of the outskirts and the hills streched out all around the town. I could see parts of buildings, most lay randomly around the place in pieces do to the artillary bombardment. I couldn't see to far out though, smoke blocked my site from the rest of the places.

I looked down the hill. The hill sloped down fairly steep into a open area and then onward into the town. I extended my foot out and using my hands and feet, I carefuly began to make my way down the hill. I eneded up finding myself using my slick armor to slide down the hill on my back, not by an accident, but I just figured it would work better, which it did do to the snow.

I slid to a stop at the bottom of the hill and immediately rolled over onto my stomach on the ground, gun at the ready for any possible targets that may of heard me coming down the hill by any chance. No one emerged from the buildings, nothing moved, everything was quiet now. I listened. There was no longer any gunfire in the air as well. I got to my knees, keeping my gun at the ready, I crouch walked to the nearest building. 'Jacks Restraunt' the sign on it said. I had to read it backwards though from where I was.

It was one of the three visible buildings ahead of me, the one in the middle. I didn't know what the two buildings on the sides of it where. I got closer to the buildings. I had to watch my steps to prevent making to much noise. The ground was littered with junk such as tires, car doors, blow out glass and metal, wood, and many other things that where also burried in the snow.

I soon came up on the building. I noticed a weird object laying in the snow, it had a funny shape to it and layed by the backdoor of the building. I made my way to it over to it carefuly. I got close enough to realize that it wasn't an object, but half a persons body sticking out from under the snow face down. I began to brush the snow off of the body to examine it. I wanted to check for bullet shots. I could examine them and figure out what weapons where being used on the field and also figure ranks from them.

I brushed as much snow as I could off of the person and examined the back to find no bullet piercings in the person. It also came to my attention that there seemed to be no blood on the ground as well, though there was a form of liquid. I took it that the body was ejecting the waste now that the person was dead. I hooked my arm in under the stomach to flip the person over.

I raised the person a small bit. A explosion filled the air nearby causing me to drop the person and raise my gun up for any threats. I heard a building start to drop the ground, it was close. I knew I had to hurry.

I reached down and flipped the person over. I found myself staring at the face of what appeared to of possibly been a young girl as I held the head up in my left hand. Her clothes here torn in the front in many places, exposing most of her body. Her face, I had a hard time looking away at first. It was disfigured. It seemed as though it was being changed from the inside of her body. A small stream of green-ish liquid poured out of the corner of her mouth and cracks of her eyes. I threw the body out of my hands and aside.

The person was infected. I checked my hands to see if any of the stuff had gotten on them, even though my hands where covered in armor, I still didn't want the stuff on me. A thought ran though my head and I looked down at the ground. The fluids that where on the ground wern't waste, but the green liquid stuff that had just come out of her mouth.

I picked up my gun and began to step off to the left slowly from the area. I found myself tripping to the ground. My feet rested on something in the snow. I got up and brushed the snow off to find another body. I didn't brush all the snow off, I quit when I saw the flesh of the body and the face. It was somewhat green, and a bone stuck out of the elbow as it bent. The skin looked wet sort of speak. As though it was nothing but water. The liquid also covered the ground by it, under the fresh snowfall that had covered it. The eyes, they made the person look alive still, as though the body was coming back to life somehow. Yet they where cold and empty from death. It felt as though the reaper had come and took the persons soul, yet he left something behind which kept the body alive.

I bolted up and away from the body, taking cover behind the side building to the far left and out of its sight. I had my back up against the wall and gazed out into the small open ground that lead back to the hill. I looked to my right to find another building and a street. From here the town began to expand out to the sides and out ahead with the hill.

"Сверхздесь!" A voice yelled out in the night snowfall, making my heart stop beating with fear.  
"Да сэр!" Another voice replied.   
I had heard the form of talking before, it was russian. Russian troops where near by. I looked around for them but everything seemed clear.

"Другой." Someone said extremely close.  
I pinpointed the voices and knew where they where. I peaked out from the corner of the building to where the bodies laid. A squad of EWCU Royal Troops from the Russian Division stood around the body I had first found. I looked at the second, it was gone. I looked around quickly for it, it was nowhere in site.

I looked back out at the russian squad. The team leader stood over the body looking at it.  
"Это заражено паразитом. Сожгите это." He said to the others and stepped away from the body.   
Everyone got away from the body, one man stood closer to it than the others. He held a flamethrower, he was a sapper. The others stood a bit more behind it to his sides, guns at the ready. He pulled the trigger. A wave of fire shot out at the body, engulfing it.

To my shock, the body jumped up onto it's knees and let out a scream. The fireing team shot, putting it down. Fear and disbelief swept though me at the site of what had just happened. The person was dead, yet the body got up somewhat.

"The other one." I thought to myself.  
I figured once I hadn't seen it that maybe they had moved it. But after seeing what I just saw, I knew the body must of moved on its own. I now looked around by me, checking the tops of the hills and nearby roofs that I could see, checking everything in sight. Yet it was nowhere to be seen.

"Здесь. Был тот здесь, это пошло." I heard one of the russians say.  
I peaked back around the corner at them, wishing I knew russian so that I would have more understanding on what was going on. I found the squad kneeling over the area of the second body, they soon looked away and formed up a circle, guns at the ready as they checked the area around them. The squad leader walked freely around while the squad sat ready in a circle. The squad leader soon found his way to the area where I slid down the hillside at, the marks of me sliding down still on the hill.

"Это двигало холм?" The squad leader said.  
"Те вещи могли действительно делать это?" Another said back.  
"Невозможный." Yet another replied.

"Невозможный не ничто, поскольку американцы говорят..." the team leader said as he returned to his squad. "И они всегда, кажется, должные доказывать это." He finished, chuckling a small bit.  
"Я предполагаю. Никакая причина сомневаться относительно durring время как это."  
"Верный." another man said back.  
"Хорошо, отпускает." the S.L. said.  
The team stood up, keeping their guns at the ready.

The team leader looked back over at the remaining body, which had quit burning and laid smoking.  
"And to think, this is what the frenchies want." He said in english to my great supprise.  
He started off though the center and far right building toward the street, the squad followed him.

I moved down the side of the building and peaked out from the corner on the opposite end. The russian team was now heading my way. I hid back in behind the wall.

They soon came back into sight as they where forced to turn right, now showing their backs to me as they carelessly walked down the middle of the street talking. I was finally able to count them, there where six of them and the leader making seven. I moved out from the building careful, I was going to follow them.

I stayed back aways though, enough to keep them in sight in the snowfall but enough so that I might live if a lazer targeted artillary round hit them. They continued to walk carelessly down the middle of the street, walking around vehicles, military and non military that blocked the way. I followed from the sidewalks and lawns of houses that still stood. Hiding behind bushes, trees, fences, parked vehicles, or whatever else I could.

I followed them five blocks down where they walked into the middle of a major intercetion and turned left, heading down the middle of that street too. I tried to follow them along the sidewalks and other things, but eneded up finding myself in the middle of the street behind them. The sidewalks where now litered with debris such as roofs, blow out cars, beds, wood, glass and many other things, making it impossible to do stealth among them.

Even in the middle of the street, pieces of roofs still layed out among the way, parts of the road where blown out and tiling laid everywhere.

I followed the team for another two blocked where they turned right down another street, me behind them. Here houses where completely dropped to the gound in some areas, some buildings where only half of what they where or had holes blown out in them. In some houses, stairs that lead up to nowhere became the tallest part of the building, beds that where on upper floors laid out in the streets in pieces as well as other objects, some still on fire. Smoke blew though the air here, masking the snowfall somewhat here and there.

I continued to look around a bit, until I was forced to stop when a bullet flew by me. Gunfire suddenly filled the air everywhere as bullets hissed by my face. I looked at the russians, sure that they had noticed me and where shooting. I instead found them all bolting to cover behind a car, all seven kneeling down behind it when they got to it. I bolted off the street and hid in behind a light pole... Well, what remained of it.

I looked out at the russians. They had formed up into a huddle behind the car and where making a plan. The S.L. broke off for a second and peaked up over the car and returne fire for a second with his MA5B before huddling back up with the squad. Within seconds, three flankers broke off to the right into a broken down house to flank their targets that where down the road. It seemed as though they where entrenched behind a low stone wall where the road cut off left or right.

Nine or so men broke off from the team at the end of the road, heading to the right as well. They where going off to intercept the russian flanking units. The russians behind the car returned fire at the team down at the low wall about one-hundred yards down the way. After about twenty seconds of engagement, a rocket hissed down from the road at the russian soldiers, missing the car by only about a foot or so and hitting the building behind me off to my right a bit, blowing a hole into the side of the wall and knocking small rocks onto me.

The russians broke off from the car and bolted into the nearby house that the flankers had entered. The car exploded as a rocket hit it about five seconds after they had bolted from it.

The team emerged from the wall and began to head down the sidewalk on the opposite side of where the russians where now located. I started to stand out from behind the small pole to show that I was a friendly, an american too, but stopped just before doing so. The team that was located behind the wall where French Mechanized troops. They entered a building a few ways down before being in front of the russians.

Everything became quiet for a mintue. Depression hit me hard. I was located in a fight between two enemy fronts. Something else hit me, they where on the same side, so why would they be fighting. I began to wonder if one of the two sides had swiched military fronts, like the germans did during the invasion into America by China.

A small explosion filled the air nearby. I noticed it was behind the building two houses down from me from the gap before me. Gunfire soon broke out from between the two houses. I raised my shotgun up. Preparing myself for anything, now that the fight was so close. I didn't dare move, I somehow hadn't been noticed behind the small pole and feared that if I moved from the area, I would draw attention.

It wasn't long after the fighting started that a rocket shot out from the french's position, hitting the building that the russians took cover in. Dust filled the air and a wierd noise filled the air. A second after, the building that the russians where in could be heard falling to the ground, shooting more dust into the air. Naturally the shooting stopped from the two sides not being able to see eachother, and the fact that the russians where most likely dead.

I coughed slightly as dust entered into my helmet slightly. My air filters had become worn out and damaged to the point that that dust was able to filter though slightly. I quickly forced myself to quit coughing and fouced my attention back at the building.

"C'est que vous vous recevez baisant des traîtres!" Someone yelled out from the french team.  
"Vous ne pouvez pas vaincre Max Long!" Another yelled.  
I didn't know french, but I did recognize two words, 'Max Long', the EWCU General that I had just killed a few days back.

The dust began to fade out into the rest of the world and the building now became visible, the french continued to taunt about their win it seemed, but I knew the fight wasn't over. The buildings right side had collapsed, the rest saged downward to that side a bit. But there was no way that section could of killed everyone, let along there was no screams of pain so there was no wounded. Meaning they where all alive, or one person was killed at the most.

I squinted trying to find the russian team. They had hidden well inside the building, I couldn't find them. They where probaly waiting for the french to come check their position so they could ambush them.

I sat around and waited. Three mintues passed and nothing happened. I continued to wait and became suspicious.  
"Wait..." I said to myself quietly, "Their not..." I started to myself again but quit as a knife was put to the rubber part of my my throat, where the knife could cut me and a arm reached around me a bit.

Fear stuck over my entire body. I stayed still, my gun in my hand. I knew I could hit him in the gut with the butt of my gun, but I had also learned during training that it could cause his arm to jerk and accidently slit my throat. I dropped my gun and put my hands up slightly. Perspiration dampened my face all over, as well as the rest of my body. I had a knot in my throat, but couldn't swallow it do to the knife. My heart was also racing like mad, I thought it would fail in any second.

I know knew how they hid so good, they where no longer in the building at all. The arm tightened up on me as the person pulled back slightly, I corporated with the sign he gave me and began to slowly step back with him. I was pulled back in around the corner of the building behind me and soon completely behind the building itself. The knife was taken away from my throat.

"Sorry about the peacing means." A russian accented voice said to me.  
I looked over my shoulder at the man. It was the russian team leader I had seen back at where the bodies where when I slid into the town. His team stood around behind him watching the rear.  
"At ease comrade." He said to me with a small smile.  
I turned around to him.  
"Are you part of the told reinforcements that the WWMF said where to be come from the American Division?" He asked.  
I didn't like the way he talked in english, it was confusing they way he said it all. It took me a second to think over what he said and figure what he ment. I looked at him confused though.

He put his face up into my visior and put his hand above his eyes a bit, he was looking into my helmet, causing me to feak out a bit.  
"Confused and panicked you seem is to be." He said to me, his face still on my visior.  
I was confused and freaked out. Confused by both what he was talking about and how he said everything in english, and still panicked about the knife thing and his face being up in my visor. The man made me think of a kid with his face pressed up against a window to make a weird look. He soon removed his face from my visior.

"Part of the nineth combat-recon infantry you are, no?" He asked me.  
I looked at him for a second. "N-No, im not in the nineth." I told him.  
"Then they no come?" He asked me.  
"Why would we reinforce you?" I answered back with a question.  
"You no hear comrade? We equal now." He said to me.  
"E-Equal?" I again answered with a question.  
"Equal, yes. Same." He replied.  
I think I was begining to understand what he was talking about.  
"Same... Same side?" I asked.  
"Yes, yes. What part of understanding equal do you not know to understand?" He said to me.  
It took me a minture to figure out what he ment, but I ignored it when I realized he was getting a bit snotty and unpatient.

Someone came in from behind me, stepping up to the S.L. and holding my shotgun in one hand.  
"Их перемещение." He said to him as I checked my rear, not knowing that a russian was there.  
"Хорошо." The S.L. replied. I turned back to him.  
"Your gun." He said as he handed it to me. I took it from him.  
"Ammo?" He asked me.  
"What?" I said back to him.  
He put his hands up and rubbed his eyes.  
"Do you have much of?" He asked again.  
"O-Oh, do have I ammo? No, not much." I answered back.

He reached down and pulled out his M6D Pistol from his holster and handed it to me.  
"You take." He said to me.  
I understood what he ment this time and took the gun from his hands and began to put it in my belt holster, but found myself trying to put it into nothing. I had again forgot that I had lost it.  
"Point, pull, they die." He said to me.  
"G-Got ya." I said to him, annoyed that he would think I wouldn't know how to use it.

"You help the same yes?" He asked me.   
I took it that he was asking me if I would help cause where 'equal' now. I agreed I would.

I decided I would have to dual-weild my shotgun and pistol at this point. I held my shotgun with my right hand, bracing it up against my shoulder and held my pistol in my left. I did use my left hand to hold the shotgun up as well, I rested it in between my finger and thumb, while holding the pistol under it as the same time. When needed I could drop the shotgun and use the pistol.

We all huttled up in a group. The S.L. went over the plan... in russian. But told it to me in english afterward, I only figured out half the things he was saying. We formed up on the wall. The S.L. in the front, the squad behind him, and me at the rear.

From what he said. There where thirteen or so enemies in the lower section of the builidng and five to six in the upper part. The plan I figured out was that the enemy was currently checking for dead bodies in the house, according to what the one man had said. We would jump out and ambush them when they returned to the others, we would then basicly attack the position to cut it short after that.

We waited in line for about thirty seconds before he gave the go. The S.L. on the corner fired as everyone else bolted out to form a line beside him, extending out into the open gap. I stopped half was down the line when heading to my part, and looked at the enemy. Nine french soldiers where in the middle of the road trying to get back with the rest of the group. They where dead in a second.

"Où a fait qui viennent de?" A french voice yelled out.  
Many of the soldiers laid on the ground wounded rather than dead, saved by their mechanized armor and wounded from where the bullets had entered in though the rubber sections.

"Нападите!...Attack!" The russian S.L. yelled.  
The team bolted off though the small gap to the house ahead. I followed. We passed one house from behind and on to the next where the french where at. A hole was in the wall in the back, it was from the small explosion. We formed up outside it on both sides. The S.L. pulled the pin on a M9-HE Frag and tossed it in.

"Grenade ennemi!" A french soldier yelled out a split second before it detonated.  
Two voices yelled out when it did and the house saged into the middle a bit. We then breached the position. Dust filled the room as I entered and gunfire was everywhere. A round pinged off my armor, leaving a dent and causing me to step back. I entered into the dust filled room some more, a french soldier came into view. I shot the person in the stomach with my shotgun, he yelled and looked at me, dropping his gun and holding his gut with his hands. He was also mechanized so it didn't go though with to much power, enough to wound him though. I pumped my shotgun and shot him again, killing him.

I found a door and stepped into another room. It was filled by a smoke gernade. I entered and a french soldier dashed at me from my left. I dogged and smacked him in the back with my gun, knocking him to the ground. I took aim with my shotgun and fired, killing him in one shot.

I was about to turn when pain shot though my right arm. I let out a scream as a bayonet was stabbed into the rubber part of my back shoulder, causing me to drop the shotgun. The knife was pulled out and I turned, shooting him with the pistol rapidly as I fell to the ground in a spin from turning.

I landed on a wooden chair, crushing and breaking it as I hit the ground on my stomach facing away from the man. I reached for my shoulder in pure fear. Pain rushed though my left leg causing me to scream again.

I rolled a bit more to my left side and looked down toward my feet. The man I had shot laid on the ground unharmed. The small explosive rounds wern't enough to get though the metal sections of his armor where they hit. The shots had only knocked him down.

Anger now suddenly rushed though me, killing the fear that had consumed me.   
"You fucker!" I yelled at him as he pulled the knife out and raised him arm up, preparing to stab me again.  
He brought it down and made contact with the floor as I moved my leg out of the way, disarming him of his knife by kicking it out of his hand afterward.

He got up on his knees and reached over for the knife I had kicked out of his hands a bit. I turned toward him and got up a bit, enough that I was able to spear him to the ground, putting him on his back.

I was ontop. I raised my hand up and made a fist.  
"I'll kill you!" I yelled into his face as I brought my hand down, busting into his visior.

I began to goudge out his right eye with my fingers, pressing inward on the two sides of it, squishing it. I wasn't applying much pressure yet do to him using his hands to hold my arm back, but it was still hurting him as he started screaming from the pain. It made me happy hearing him scream in pure panic and pain. I soon was able to force my arm just slightly down a bit more, applying more pressure onto his eye. He soon focused his thoughts, kicked, and knocked me off of him, rather then kicking in pure panic which did no good.

The room was now clear of the smoke from the gernade. I looked at him as he rolled around, his hands in his visior holding his eye. A volly of bullets soon stuck him. I looked over at the stair case, the team was coming down them. The S.L. was kneeled down on the steps, his MA5B smoking slightly and pointing at the man. They had gone and cleared out the rooms in the upper levels. They probaly didn't see us in the smoke. I was so focused on causing the man pain that I didn't even hear the fighting going on up there.

I sat back up against the nearby wall, the part that was still there. I covered my shouler wound with my left hand and my leg with my right catching my breath. Pain began to surge back though my body as well as fear, combined they ridded the anger that had taken control and captured my body from it, winning its own little fight.

The S.L. soon came up to me and noticed my wounds.  
"Санитар!" He yelled to the others. "Санитар!"  
"Наши мертвые санитары!" Another replied.

"Medic is dead comrade." He said to me. "Worry no, we get you to command post medic." He finished.  
The wounds started to quit hurting as he talked to me, numbing themselves as I began to lose conscious. The russian man hooked his arms around me and began to lift me up along the wall until I stood. From there he put me onto his shoulders.

"Получите н--ш раненный! доб--лись, чтобы до--ься до коман--го пункта!" He started demanding everyone. His voice fading out here and there.  
He started to move and we exited the building. I could make out the snow on the ground and it falling from the sky still. We where jogging down the middle of the street again. Others where behind us, two others carried wounded as well while the rest jogged along with their guns at the ready. That was the last thing I saw.


	5. Taking Arms Again

_October 29th, 2552, 7:08 PM _

**David**

It was only a matter of time, and it had finally come. After four months of helping with the wounded I was now 'eligible to die' as some said. My brother had met the eligiblity, I was told he had been killed during the fight with Max's troops. I stood in a line in the street in the camp, in front of the medical tent by the gate. Most of the line had already gone though. There where about fifteen or so ahead of me and four behind me. Desks laid along in front of the stores with stuff on them and made there way down to the tent.

I had noticed that the defences in the city where being strenthened. Three M65A2 .65 caliber stationary machine gun emplacements now where ontop of the gate wall structure. They overlooked the headlong of the Chinese attack into Texas. We also had a 120mm anti-air cannon here in the camp, it was located by the smoke-pipes on the roof of one of the buildings. A machine gun was also set up by the medical tent and looked down the street. It was a M41 Stationary though, .50 caliber.

"Here you go." A man said behind the first table as he handed me a BR55 Rifle.

I looked at the gun for a second. I had hardly even shot a Battle Rifle. My MOS was a close-quarters and distant sniper with the S2AM.  
"Good luck out there." The next man said at the next table as he handed me a belt holster. I put it on and went to the next table.  
"Gun?" A man asked me as he was kneeled down going through boxes under the table.  
"BR55." I answered.  
"Version?" He asked afterward. I looked at the butt of the gun.  
"Version A-Two-Point-Two." I said to him.  
A few seconds later he emerged from under the table with about tweleve magazines in his arms. He dropped them out onto the table and I picked up the first clip and began to put it into a pouch, instead I found out I was trying to put it into a water container. I looked at the belt. It was diffrent from the Mechanized stuff we wore. I curesed the fact that I had been assigned to the Marines during the confusion of the new counter-attack that had just been launched.

I found the ammo pouch and began to put the ammo into the pouch. I continued on down the row of tables, recieveing all my equipment that I already didn't have. Going down I recieved my sidearm and ammo for it, gernades, food, filled my container, medical kit, bayonet, and a few other minor things before reaching the end. I was supprise to receive a mess-kit. It contained stuff like coffee, tea, ham, pans, matches, cups, meat, and other things. These kind of things where banned back in 2430 and hadn't been given out do to the increasing population that it went to. Seeing them reissue it after being banned for so long only made me know that something was going extremely wrong.

I soon left the main camp and into the free-city-camp. I looked around. Gun emplacements where placed up in sections of windows in the buildings, some four to five stories high. Anti-Air cannons could be seen sticking out from the roofs of some buildings and anti-armor cannons where placed in other areas. Seeing the ever inceasing defence made me know that where ever I was going, it was going to be bad.

I walked down the street to the rally point, thinking about the information I had learned during my few months stay at the camp. I had been told some things by soldiers, mainly how bad we where getting beaten. One soldier came in from the front, I was issued to help him. I was taking care of the wounded when I asked him what was going on. He acted like all the others and just looked at me for a second and looked away. To my supprise he began to talk after a minute.

"Y-You don-don't see them... Until its already to late." Is what he told me. That was the only information I had gotten from the man.

I also found another person for information, he had given me more. I was sitting on the ledge of the roof of a lower section store when he joined me. He asked me how I had gotten wounded and what task force I was from. I had told him I hadn't been to the front, he laughed slightly and said I was lucky.

He told me that a new enemy front had come out of nowhere and attacked, talking everything one-hundred or so miles inland before we even had time to respond. He spoke of retreats all over the the defensive front that we made to quarantine their movements when they attacked further inland. We then had launched a nation wide counter attack on the enemy which came out to be a major failure, he was wounded during that assault three months ago. He told of famous task teams being destroyed, such as the 7th, 21st, and 42nd Infantry battalions. Airbrone drop teams such as the 101st where gone as well. He said they simply just didn't have more people to fill the positions of the military teams. Such battalions just plain no longer existed.

I didn't have to hard of a time believing him. My unit, the 15th Airborne was now pretty much gone. Members of the unit where thrown into other battalions. I was thrown in with the newly formed 14th Marine Assault Force. We where a mere two-hundred men, most still wounded. When I had asked him what nation had opened up a new front on America, he laughed and questioned the word nation and told me I would find out when I would be sent in. From there he got up and had left.

I arrived at the rally point. Within seconds the four people behind me arrived as well and all two-hundred of us stood there, awaiting to find out what we where supposed to do next. Most just talked about random shit which held little intrest to me. I walked over to the edge of the sidewalk by the line of palm trees, the edge dropped about five feet and down into the water. I looked out at the water and the bridge out in the distance. I listened as the water hit up against the concreate side.

The sound relaxed me some, I had even focused out the sound of everyone talking for a moment. After a bit I returned to the rest of the group. Everyone was still talking about random things. It wasn't long after that I picked up a faint humming noise. After a mintue everyone quieted down to listen as well as they began to hear it as well. We soon looked out toward the bridge as a squadron of Pelicans came into view. The squadron soon passed by overhead, it was a british Pelican squadron. I counted around thirty-three before they flew out of sight over the buildings again, but I knew there was more.

"England." I heard someone say. "Didn't the enemy take their nation a few days back?" I heard the voice asked out lound, being directed to everyone.  
"Hell if I know." Came a reply.  
"Yeah, yeah. I heard they where." Someone else announced back out among us.  
Within seconds everyone was talking about Englands defeat and how their remaining military was cutting down though America into Mexico.

I looked over at the man that had asked about the defeat out loud. I thought about asking him if he had heard anything else. I started to speak up when another Pelican squadron flew in overhead. I looked up at them quickly, I hadn't heard this group coming, none of us seemed to as we gazed up at them. It was russian squadron, our newest allies. They flew by overhead among the buildings and circled back around and began to decend in our area. We all backed off toward the edge of the road by the water that lead out to the bridge in the distance to make room for a landing there.

The Pelicans landed all around the area. There where ten of them. Three landed in front of us, others landed down around the other parts of camp. We watched as russian Mechanized soldiers poured out of the Pelicans. They all glanced over at us as they started out of the dropship and headed on down for the main section of the camp. We all watched them as they walked on down, some began talking about them, wondering if we could fully trust them.

I saw a American Mechanized soldier among them. It was advisor it seemed. A soldier in our army that taged along with groups of theirs and kept in contact so that there was no confusion among our armies, seeing as how they still wore the colors of the EWCU. The advisor made sure that they whern't confused as a French troop or something and attacked by our forces.

I was busy watching the soldiers walk off down the road when I heard a voice yell out, causing me to jump a bit and look ahead of me.   
"Attention!" The voice yelled out.  
I looked over to find a group of CO's in green mechanized armor in front of all of us, they had come off the Pelicans as well and where American. We all started scrambling around to form neat rows and columns. Standing our guns on the ground under our hands and snapping to attention, saluteing them once we did.

A CO stepped forward, reading papers while he did. He came to a stop a bit in front of the first line. After a minute of reading, he looked up and began to walk down among the first line and speak.

"Alright, listen up. I'm only saying this once. You guys as you already probaly know, are being sent out to the front. You are being sent to the newly formed defensive line. You are being deployed to south-eastern Kansas, one of the most vital points in the line. Your mission is simple. If the Second Infantry's counter attack on the enemy should fail in your section of the line, then you must make sure to stop any counter attack that may follow afterward. It will not just be you. You are reinforcing the Ninth Marine Rifle Corps already stationed in that sector of the line. When you arrive, you will be briefed in more detail by the commanding officer in that region. Everyone understand?"

"Sir, yes sir!" We all replied at once, still saluteing.  
"Good! Then mount up on a dropship and move out!" He finished, saluteing us after he finished. "And gods speed." He added. Which really made us worry even more.

People began to break off for the dropships and the COs started down for the the commanding quarters of the camp. Most the people took off for the dropships located further out in the camp, probaly to stall for a bit more time. I went ahead and got on the nearest, taking a seat between two girls at the back of the Pelican. There where only ten Pelicans so the Pelicans became over croweded as some soldiers had to sit on the floor inbetween the the people sitting on the seats on the sides. Boxes of ammo and food where also soon put onto our dropship as well, causing the pilots to bitch a lot about the extra weight they had to haul.

Within ten mintures after loading up on the Pelican the ramp began to pull up and we started to take off. The thrusters kicked on and we slowly lifted off the ground. If felt funny at first cause it took it a bit longer to really get going, do to all the supplise and extra people we carried.

I was now eligible to die, just as many other had already done. The words ran though my head over and over as I stared at my gun that sat between my legs. I wondered if I would die as well, like my brother and Jake. I didn't know, but I knew I would find out in a few hours when we reached the front. I reached down and snapped the safety off my gun, preparing myself for war.


	6. A War Apart

_October 29th, 2552, 7:23 PM _

**Thomas**

I watched as the buildings came into view from the back of the Pelican. The ramps where already down, so we could dismount and the next force could get right on. I watched as we flew in though buildings, soon turning around and begining to decend.

"И готовый!" The russian CO ordered.  
I picked up my SMG that rested in my lap and stood up at the door, facing out. The others stood up and we formed two lines on each side.  
"Один, готовый!" I yelled out, telling him that I was ready.  
"Два, готовый!" The guy to my left yelled.  
"Три, готовый!" The guy behind me announced, continuing down to the end.

It felt good to be able to walk again and be back in America. I had been announced dead when I reached the russian medical station, but they where wrong. Which scared me to know when I came to reality. I would of been back sooner, but I learned that I had also been shot twice. Which I didn't know happened. I was unable to walk for about three months. While stuck how I was the CO taught me how to speak russian. Not perfect russian, but I could now speak and understand it fairly good.

I had also been assigned to the russian military as an advisor during the British evacuation when we went in to help them get out of the nation and away from the alien military front there. I also learned that the aliens had invaded America, and where slowly taking the nation as well. A quarter of the nation already belonged to them, which depressed me a lot. I was also told that they where just sitting there now and had been for months which confused me. We had entered though Canada, which was in no real danger at the moment and cut down though the defensive lines thoughout the states and down to Camp Turf, following the british squadron and out of range of the resting enemy force.

The Pelican touched down and we all poured out. I stopped for a second before a huge crowd of marines that stood over by the line of palm trees. I soon started off down the street for the main section of the camp. The marines looked like they where in bad shape. One man had both his arms wrapped up in front of his chests, they where broke. Sadly a pistol was rested on his arms, still being given a weapon and expected to fight as though he would be of any help.

It hit me as I walked down the street. The air smelled of urine and shit. It made me a bit sick just breathing. I walked down the road and under the small bridge. A soldier dropped to his knees and took off his helmet and hurled on the street. I almost threw up with him after seeing him do it, the smell of the camp was already bad enough. A few soldiers went over and helped him. I continued on, slowly, trying to keep my stomach settle.

I soon reached the gate, which was stationed with many guards. We where forced to take off our helmets and show our faces as well to get though securtiy and into the commanding quarters of the camp. I entered though the gate. The medical tent was still in the middle of the street, a soldier laid in the metal tent on a metal table being cut open for his operation. It was more then I could take. My helmet was already off, I hurlled.

Everyone stepped away from me and stared at me.  
"Jesus christ man, this isn't Target." A marine said to me as I sat kneeled down coughing.  
"Вы хорошо?" A russian soldier questioned, asking me if I was okay as he helped me up.   
"Да." I replied saying yes as he helped me up.

I made my way down the steet with the other soldiers. Soldiers where everywhere. The camp was severly overloaded with wounded and unorganized pockets of teams that had randomly retreated here from the last front.

I was ordered to report into the commander of the camp on arrival. The russians where to go and sleep while they could and where being directed down to the cots. I passed the tent and headed up the ramp to the commanders quarters. There where a few cots located in by a enterence to my left by the commanding quarters, I could tell they had easily doubled the ammount they had.

I spotted the commander sitting at his desk in the back corner of the area and started for him. Two guards suddenly stepped out in front of me a bit before I got to him, their guns in their hands and bayonets attached.

"State your business?" One of them stated.

I looked at the man, he had a funny look. The right half of his face had a beard while the left part didn't, easily noticing that he didn't get to finish shaving when he was. But his face suddenly turned serious looking.

"State your business, now?" He asked again.

I answered back that I was to see the commander once I reached camp, I also took a paper out of my pouch that contained the orders that had been transmitted. He took them, told me to wait, and headed off to the commander. After talking a bit, I was allowed to talk to the commander.

I walked up to the man.  
"Steel." He said smiling and stood up to shake my hand.  
"Commander Owenson, sir." I replied as I shook his hand.  
He was in his sage green armor but didn't wear his helmet. If I remebered right, he never seemed to wear his helmet when I did see him.

He sat down in his chair, pulled himself up and skimmed though some papers. He soon began to question me on things while I was in the russian ranks, such as plans for a betrayal, unknown movements or engagements, and such things. I told him everything I knew. I told him about the papers I had found, the fight in Antarctica where I had been wounded, my time in their military when wounded, and fighting in their ranks in England against the aliens. I told him everything I could think of from when I had found the russians.

After going though all the questions I was dismissed. He seemed quit happy about the information that he got from me. I started to walk away but stopped and looked back. I wanted to take the chance to ask him if my brother was still in the camp. I asked. The marine information expert was soon typing away on his laptop.  
"Steel, David. Wounded during 'Operation End.' Was in camp for four months. Recently transfered to the Marines and sent to the front." He said.

I was supprised to hear he had been transfered to the Marines. Supplise for mechinized soldiers was running very low and was probaly why. I thanked the man and began to walk away.  
"Shoot." The man said suddenly.  
I stopped and turned to him.

"You brother just left forty-three mintues ago, when you dropped in." The marine said to me.  
I got the message clear. My brother was in the group that had been sent out to the front when we came in, the group I was looking at. I made me a bit angery to know that I was looking right at him and didn't notice him.

I turned and headed down toward the cots to go to sleep. I was extremely upset and just felt like laying out in a cot. I went down the ramp, cots where located among the area just outside the commanders quarters, they where all full. I made my way down into the small building area where the main cots where. They where full too.

I asked a soldier if they had a extra cot.  
"Yeah, sure." He replied and told me to follow him.

I was lead back up to the commanders quarters and to some crates. The guy began to pull a container down that was stacked ontop of another, it was around four feet long.

He pulled it down and slid it in by the other so that the two streched out to about eight feet. He poped the lid off of one and pulled out a pillow, put the lid back on, and put the pillow on the lid.

"There you are." He said and walked off.

I looked at him as he walked away. I was in no mood to argue and just accepted this as my bed. I hopped up onto the containers that where full of what I took as pillows. I sat there as I took off my helmet. The air smelled much worse now that it wasn't being filtered at all, but I focused out the smell and ignored it. I sat my helmet down and looked at it. It was red. I was used to wearing brown armor to show that I was in a buddy team, but my armor had gotten damaged so bad during my fight in Antarctica that I was given a spare red allied armor from the reinforcing american teams.

Seeing as I had no blanket I decided to sleep with the rest of my armor on. I folded my pillow so that it suck up a bit more and layed out. I began to think about my brother and how I just missed him. The thought of him being right there the entire time made me angery, and now he was 'a war apart.' A saying I heard another man say. I soon quit thinking about everything and stared up into the nightish sky and at the stars that where starting to become visible.

It felt good to be able to streach out and relax a bit more without it raining on you or gunfire keeping you awake. Even with the horrid smell it was still relaxing. I soon closed my eyes and started thinking about other things that didn't relate to the war and stuff. I started to think back to better times before World War Three. I continued to think about the things until they began to change in my head and turn into other things as I lost touch of reality and fell asleep.


	7. Fighting Reality

_October 31st, 2552, 8:11 PM _

**Dave**

I stormed out of the tent in disbelief, others followed me. I stepped out into the dirt parth before the line of tents and flood lights and stood there, trying to take everything in. Aliens. Aliens from another world was our enemy. It was like something out of a fucked up fantasy when I saw its dead body being dragged in before us. I looked around at all the people in the area. Most of the soldiers seemed calm, talking and joking among themselves.

Me and two other people stood there, someone else had left with us but they took off somewhere else. We all thought that the commander was fucked up in the head until they brought a dead body in to show us at the end of the briefing. I walked off to the tents that where laid out in a long lines and columns before me and cut though them to my post. I thought about what was said in the briefing.

On arrival, we had basicly just been issued out positions incase the enemy attacked and stuff, talking over the defences and other things. We then given time to rest afterward. After which we where taken into the commanders tent for out briefing. He talked about and showed on his projector about allied and enemy movements thoughout America since the attack.

After about a hour of talking about that and answering questions he told us about the enemy. I was like everyone else, I thought he was fucking with us. Until he ordered some people to bring in some of them that where killed. We had all flipped out and jumped out of our metal foldup chairs and knocked them all over the place as we backed up. He talked about them some more and about some other stuff, as to why we didn't know about them already after four months of fighting. He even allowed us to come up and examine the body. I thought it was fake after a mintue but after getting up close and seeing it I knew it wasn't.

The creature was easily around seven to eight feet tall. Its head was more narrow and longer than a persons was and it's eyes where more to the side of its head but could glance out forward do it its shape. Its mouth I took it for was broke out into four sections it seemed. Its feet where big and had three 'toes' sort of speak. He also brought in one of their weapons and showcased it to us. I could tell that it wasn't made by us, just by looking at it. After looking at it, it was more then I could take in and I left.

I soon cut through all the tents and emerged out onto the medical wing a top the fortified hill line. Wounded where everywhere, they came in from the front very often. I cut though the medical area and emerged on the arillary line. The artillary crew griped at me and told me not to cut though where they where but I ignored them and cut though. I soon emerged at the end of the top of the hill. From here it slopped down into a series of trenches that lead out to a highway overpass.

The hill itself had a highway tunnel in it. The trenches on the hillside ended about a hundred or so yards before the road that ran north to south with the trenches at the bottom of the hill. The main road was a bridge that ran over a road below it that fed into the tunnel that went east to west and went into the hill. The hill continued down the side of the overpass along the edges of the main road.

The trenches ran up and down and cut north to south in two parts of the trench to form three lines. My post was on the first line, the one at the very bottom. I headed for my post.

I made my way down the trenchs and arrived at the bottom. I put my hands on the top of the trench and stood there and looked out at the hills far ahead and the artillary flashes that shot out among them. I stood at the far right of the first line and just listened to the faint rumble of the bombardment and fighting going on between them and the second infantry. I looked down the line at other soldiers that stood around on watch, their faces full of disbelief and fear at what was before them.

I continued to look out at the flashes of death, trying to take everything in and understand. I looked to my left side as another marine came and leaned up against the trench, resting his elbows on the grass on the and rested his head in his right hand and looked out at the fight ahead. I looked back out as well as we sat there silent for the moment.

"Your thoughts?" The person asked a bit moaped.

I was supprised to find out it was a females voice and looked over at the soldier for a second before turning back to the fight ahead.  
"Don't know." I replied.

"Don't know?" The girl said back with confusion in her voice.  
I looked over at her to find her looking a bit over at me, her head still on her hand.  
"I don't know how to discribe my thoughts really." I answered and looked away. "Supprised I guess."

We sat there silent for a moment. I looked down at the road running paralell with the trenches. A convoy was making it way down the overpass. Three anti-armor and personal jeeps took point, nine transport jeeps filled with mechanized infantry followed and two scropion tanks ended the convoy as they followed in behind the transport vehicles. They where fragments of the second infantry heading for the front to keep the counter attack going.

The convoy stopped on the overpass as someone stood up on the back in the first transport hog. The soldier had binoculars and was gazing out down at the artillary flashes. He began shouting stuff out at everyone and soon sat back down. The convoy began to move but after crossing the overpass they cut off into the grass and began to make their way slowly down the grassy hill and feed off back onto the main road below and made there way for the fight.

We watched until they started to fade out of view.  
"Your thoughts?" I asked the girl and looked over at her.  
She looked over at me. "Victory." She said.  
"Victory?" I questioned.  
"Do you believe well lose?" She asked. "That the'll break our line of defence and make their way unchallenged thoughout America and win?"

I looked back at the bombardment which grew a bit louder and closer.   
"What's truely stopping them?" I answered while questioning.  
"Us." The girl said.  
I looked over at her.  
"Us?" I asked. "Not for four months we haven't. Four months where they just sat there until we attacked."

"Maybe. But there's nothing else there to stop them excpet us." She replied. "We'll stand firm."  
"Why do you think that?" I asked as I turned away and looked back at the bombardment. It no longer flashed in behind the hills but now flashed out more in front, getting closer to us. The second was being pushed back.

"Occupation." The girl said. "No matter how far advanced you are over another, occupation always fails. It may last awhile, but it fails in the end. As people and all the wars we've had, we know better."

I stood there quiet for a minute, just watching and listening to others around us and the fighting.

"Well, I suppose you'll have to tell them that when they get here." I finally answered.  
I looked at her as she put her left hand on my left shoulder, she was leaving.  
"We may not tell them here but we'll tell them in the end." She said and walked off up the trench line.  
I stayed and continued to watch. I sat there and stared blankly out ahead.

"Hey." A voice called out right behind me as a hand was slammed onto my right shoulder.  
I jumped and reality foucsed back in. I had gone into a daydream kind of state.

I looked behind me at the man.  
"Are you posted on duty here at the moment?" He asked.  
"No... Not at the moment." I replied. "I was just watching the fighting." I said and looked back out at the distant hills. I noticed the artillary had stopped while I was away from reality.   
"Then get back up the trench and to the medical wing and help out some of the medics, they need it." He told me.  
I looked back at him. "Um, alright." I answered.

He took his hand off my shoulder and headed down for the next guy in the line. I turned and began to head up the trench.


	8. Advanced Arms Assault

_October 31st, 2552, 8:11 PM _

**Thomas**

I opened up the door to the small store down by the medical tent and stepped in. The place had been cleaned out and was now full of medical supplise, I walked around a stack of boxes and found what I was looking for.

"I thought I said I wasn't taking any more, and I ain't doing nothing halloweenish either." A man said on a bed before me.

He was laying in the bed that was by the wall, he faced away from me but knew I was there.  
"I'm not here to give you anything." I answered. "Just to talk."

He lifted his head up over his shoulder and peaked over at me. It was Steve.

He quickly realized who I was seeing as how I wasn't in my armor, but in a company uniform. He shot up to a sitting position against the wall on his bed with excitement and invited me over to sit by him on in the empty chair. I was only allowed five minutes with him do to his sickness but used it well as I talked with him.

I told him a bit about his 'virus.' I didn't tell him all of it, I didn't want to tell him that something was inside of him and had infected his bloodstream from the inside. It was already to late for him. Owenson had already planned and to have Steve killed during his sleep tonight before he was fully taken in by it in the future. It hurt me to talk to him and know that he was soon going to die, but the way he talked, I knew he knew that his time was short as well.

We only talked about it briefly. He wanted to know what was happening on the front. The rules among the military for as long as it remained in command contact was that anyone that hadn't been to the newly opened front and didn't know where not to be told so that there would be no trouble from the member until he was already there. I was permited to tell Steve everything I knew though, seeing as how he would never end up going back. He was shocked to learn about everything but didn't take it to hard.

It wasn't long before the guard stepped in and said I had to go. He gave us a minute to say our goodbyes, for the final time. I said mine meaning it for the last time, Steve knew, he asked if he was going to die soon and how. I denied that he was and answered it as "One life, one meeting" to try and hide it, but he still knew, it only expressed more that he was going to die.

I exited the building with tears in my eyes. I headed down the street a bit and stopped to think things over. I walked across the street to the line of steaming pans on the tables and got some food. I made my way down the line as the cooks put food out on the tray. I headed up to the upper level and made my way down to where the road turned off to the cots. I sat on the ledge of where the building side extended out to the turn of the street.

I must of sat around for thirty minutes just picking at it and eatting a few bites here and there. I was deep in thought. I thought about my brother mainly. Jake was dead and Steve was going to be killed tonight in a few hours. Everyone I knew was dieing and I wondered if Dave was still alive.

I turned my attention to a group of about fifteen guys and girls who where standing around something in the street. They blocked whatever it was as they huddled in around it. They had been there for the past ten minutes doing what ever it was they where doing.

I sat there and watched them in the dark for about another ten minutes before one of them got excited.  
"It's working!" He announced aloud, causing everyone else to huddle in a bit more.

They where putting their ears in more than their faces, I took it he had a radio on him. They stood huddled in for about five minutes before one of them shouted out to another man down at the line of food.

"The seconds been defeated Jack!" He yelled out, causing more attention from the guards and other soldiers.

The man named Jack, who was in the food line, dashed back to the others and feed in with them to. I listened in as best as I could while they talked. They said that the second was defeated and that the last of the army was going in to cover the retreating teams as they headed out of Missouri and to the defensive line in Kansas.

It took it a sec to hit me. I tossed my tray aside and to the ground below as I hopped down. I made my way up to the others and huddled in, they glanced up at me as I came in but returned their attention back to the radio. I listened in.

I listened as best as I could, I could now hear the snap of gunfire going on in the distance as I listened in to the man transmitting everything.

"Again, they pushed second back. Fourth is defeated a hit from the water, rising out land twenty minues ago! Now mo" The voice was barking out like mad.  
The handheld radio went dead.

"Hold on." The man holding it said as he flipped it over and began messing with some wires on the opened back.  
The second had now lost and it seemed the forth also lost. The fourth had counter attacked in the southern states, second in the middle, and the ninety-nineth in the upper.  
"To hit Again. Moving Tex attacking!" The voice on the radio started before going dead again.

"What did he say?" Someone asked.  
"Couldn't tell." Another replied.

We all stood there as the guy tried to fix it again. We sat around for a bit and I began to notice something as we sat there. I stood up and listened, focusing out everything else. The raido was dead but the distant gunfire could still be heard.

I looked among the others. They where all tied in with getting the raido fixed and wern't hearing the shots. I looked over at a guard standing by the cots, he too was looking around and could hear it.

"On move! They're going to attack!..." The raido started up but was silenced by a sunnden loud whining noise.  
I covered my ears and looked around, everyone else was doing the same. It was the militarized cities emergency alarms. I stood there with my ears covered like most of the others until the alarms stopped.

I took my hands away from my ears and looked around with everyone else. A squad of MP's bolted past us down the street and around the corner toward the medical tent. I started walking slowly down the street. I made it to the corner and looked around. A squad of marine MPs stood around talking to a CO. They soon finished talking and the MPs exited though the gate and into the freesection of the militarized city camp.

It wasn't long before the gunfire could be heard from the freesection of the camp. I stood around at the corner and waited for something to happen.  
"All personal." A voice said, it was coming over the speaker on the top of the building above my head. I looked up at the seaker, startled by someones voice suddenly coming out of it.  
"All camp combat personal to arms now and to sectors A though C." The voice finished. I rechonized the voice as Owenson.

I looked around as soldiers made there way up the ramps and to the nearby armory. I continued to stand around and wait for orders, I wasn't an offical combat personal of the camp. Soldiers began coming back down the ramps, guns in their hands as they made their way out the gate and to other sectors of the militarized city.

I began to think. It had to of been them, the so called 'protectors'. They must of finished off though the defensive line after pushing back the fourth and made there way to us. But we appeared to be unprepared. We surely would of gotten a warning ahead of time that they had broken though. I continued to think.

We had recieved a warning, the radio. I thought back about what it said and it all came clear. They came by the water, attacking our defences from the water ahead.

"All non-wouned personal to arms, again, all non-wounded personal to arms." Owenson's voice ordered over the camp speaker.  
I looked around as people began to get up and make their way to the armory. I took off on my way as well.

I headed up the closest ramp, just before the bunkered medical tent. I made my way up and came to a stop in the crowed of soldiers. Everyone was talking, talking about how they where going to get revenge and kill the enemy once they got there gun and called out for theirs.

They soon began to clear out as people where soon being given guns.  
"Set up defensive positions throughout the camp once you recieved your weapon, commanders, check and organize them afterward." The speaker ordered out to us.  
I heard machine guns start firing soon after.

I soon made my way into the main armory area. There where two upper areas by the ramp that lead to the gate behind the tent. One one of the upper sides a man handed out guns to people and the other a man gave out ammo. People where handed gernades and other things at the base level by a enterence to the commanding quarters where a few boxes sat.

I soon recieved my gun, a BR55 and made my way though the commanding quarters to get out. I took the first left and headed for the ramp where I came up at. Soldiers sat around the area with their weapons, bayonets already attached to their BR55s. They sat along the upper side walks and along the ramp walls waiting for more orders.

I made my way down to the street and looked at the gate. The three sixty-five caliber machine guns where firing into the free section of the camp, the enemy was just on the other side. I jogged down the way toward the gate and started up the ramp by them. I hoped up the side to the small upper platform and where the small ladder that lead a top the gate to where the guns where, I climbed up.

I kneeled a top the platform above the gate and looked out. I couldn't see anything at first, they must of been invisible in the dark somewhere. I looked out at where the gunners where firing, out at the catwalk ahead down the street. I failed to see what they where shooting at for a second, then I saw it move. I thought it was a ball rolling down the street at first but it suddenly moved off to the side and went stright up the catwalk wall and to cover on the other side. It was one of the aliens but it was diffrent.

I continued to look out. It took me awhile but I finally began to see them, they where everywhere. Everywhere little ball like creatures slithered along the ground and up and down walls on the buildings.

The machine gunner next to me stopped firing.  
"What are you doing?" He yelled.  
I looked at him to find him looking at me.  
"Shoot them already!" He yelled.  
I looked away and soon after his gun was firing again.

I raised my Battle Rifle up and took aim down the scope and switched the firing mode to semi-automatic. I spotted one of the creatures cutting though the street ahead, machine gun bullets flying and hitting the ground around it but its small size making it a difficult target for the gunners. I traced the target until my movement was perfect with its and a tad ahead of it. I shot.

The round flew true and hit it. The small creature exploded the second the round hit it. I lowered my rifle and looked out. I began to notice them poping as rounds made contact with them. The creatures made me think of popcorn.

I raised my rifle and took aim down the sight again and found a target moving along a dirth path ahead. I took aim and shot, I missed. I shot again and missed and soon found myself shooting as rapid as I could on semi-automatic at it, pulling the trigger over and over and sending death its way again and again. I missed all twenty-nine rounds that remained in the chamber on a single target at only fifty or so yards. The thing was so small that it was just hard to hit at that range.

I reloaded my gun and took aim on a diffrent target about seventy or so yards out and managed to hit it on my seventh shot. I sat around and continued to shoot.

I was reloading my gun when a marine bolted around the corner in front of the gate and began running down the street screaming his head off, his hands reaching for the middle of his back. He soon fell to the ground, face first. He began rolling around screaming.  
"Get it out, get it out of me!" He was screaming.  
The gunners had stopped firing for the moment as they watched the marine in shock. I raised my rifle up and took aim and shot, hitting the marine in the back of his right shoulder, though I aimed for his neck. I shot a few more rounds at him until he quit moving and became silent, putting him out of his pain and fear to what was happening. I felt horrible for having to shot another soldier, but it was for the best.

I looked at the gunner to my right, he was looking at me for what I had done. He looked away when I looked at him and began shooting again, I turned away and seached for another target. The marines words where flying though my head as I searched. He was screaming about it being inside of him. I found another as it climbed along the side of the catwalk, defiying gravity. I began to shoot at it while I thought things over.

The thing had gotten inside of him. I began to think back to when I was in Antarctica and the papers I had read. It talked about the virus life form and how it got inside of people to take contol for its own means. It never listed them as a protector either, they where diffrent. We where fighting the virus form, not the aliens that I had fought in England. It was the things that Steve was infected with, as well as many other soldiers.

I conintued to fire, shooting more raipidly then before with anger running though my veins.

We continued to fight on for about another three mintures before they began to pull out it seemed. The parasites soon began heading off the other way, away from us. The gunners quit firing and so did I as they disapeared further into the darkness, gunfire could still be seen and heard from the remaining soldiers in the sector of the camp ahead and city.

The gunners next to me started cheering a bit and doing hi-fives with eachother as I watched them. I jumped a bit as a hand landed on the back of my left shoudler. I looked over to find another marine there. He had a handgun, a few empty magazines rested on the platform by him. I had never noticed that he was beside me and was fighting as well.

"We showed them didn't we!" He said excited.  
I smiled a small bit, but my smile quickly disapeared slowly as the ground slightly started to shake here and there. The marine took his hand off my shoulder and his smile too disapeared as he noticed the ground shaking slightly here and there in timed intervals. The gunners too noticed this and began to look around as they stood there, confusion in their faces.

The ground began to shake harder and harder as the seconds passed and soon began to rock my body as I was forced to use my hands to balance myself as I pressed them against the ground by my sides, to prevent me from swaying from side to side.

The sound of concrete being busted could be heard, it was the sound of buildings being torn apart and falling to the ground. I figured out where it was coming from. The source was in the freesection of the camp, off to our left on the otherside of the buildings, behind the commanders quarters. The ground shook violently and the sound of a building dropping came again followed by something else.

I glanced out to see the crane that had once stood in the freesection of the camp fly across the grounds and smash into a building, the crane was in pieces, still the cranes most intact pices was over a hundred feet long. The pieces flew into the building about three-hundred yards ahead. Dust filled the air around the area as the crane slammed into it. The crane pieces fell to the ground after hitting into the building. The pieces where easily anywhere from twenty feet to over a hundred on some. We where all hit with amazement and complete fear.

The gunner to my right looked over at me, I noticed his movement and looked at him. His mouth was completely dropped and his eyes where wide, almost wide enought that his eyeballs could just roll right out of his head.

"M-Mein got..." He said to me in a diffrent language, I don't even think he realized he did.

The ground shook violently again, catching me off guard as it caused me to fall from the top of the gate wall and down to the street ten feet below.

I layed there in the street on my back, blood starting to pour slightly out the corner of my mouth. The ground shook again and the sound of a building coming apart could be heard. I was in my company uniform and not in my mechanized military suit, otherwise I would of been fine from the fall. My back hurt for a bit and went numb and I couldn't move any part of my body from the neck down. I was defenceless.

The ground shook violently again and another building started to come apart.  
"Look out!" A voice yelled out. It was close.

I laid there unable to move. A soldier soon appeared and began to drag me across the steet back toward the nearby ramp. My back began to burn as it made friction with the cement, it was nice to know I still had atleast some feeling in my body.

I was dragged to a squad of soldiers that took cover along the ramp walls. A medic came up and examined me.  
"Where do you hurt?" He asked.  
"My body's numb and I can't move my arms or legs." I said back, getting scared about being paralized during an attack.  
The medic pulled a needle out of his pouch, along with a tube that had liquid in it. He filled the needle with the liquid and injected it into my forehead.   
"You'll be moving in a minute soldier." He said as he put everything back up.

I was rested up against the wall. I sat there and waited for something to happen, but everything remained quite and calm for the moment.

Time flew by and two minutes had past without anything happening. The soldiers stood looking around, their guns pointing out from their hips. I still couldn't move.  
"Move!" A voice yelled out from the otherside of the camp.

The ground began to shake. The sound of what sounded like to me to be the sound of a machine powering up masked out everything else.  
"Go, go!" The voice yelled out as the sound of a building being dropped occured.

It continued on with only a seconds break as another buidling dropped and the shaking got worse.  
"What the fuck is that!" Someone yelled out.

I could hear it, it was the sound of something huge walking.

There was a lound slaming sound followed by the sound of a building being crushed. It happened over and over. Rifle fire soon broke out for a second but stopped after the sound of a colapsing building.

I looked to my right at the soldier who was peaking out around the corner down the street.  
"Oh my god." He said quietly and with shock as he backed away from the corner slowly, fear in his eyes, his mouth dropped.  
I looked down at my hand and tried to make a fist. I could finally move, but only a small bit. Not enough to fully make a fist with my hand yet but none the less was starting to be able to.  
"What is it?" A young soldier down the line asked.

I looked over at him as he stared at the one man, who continued to slowly step backward until he bumped into the wall behind him.  
"Let me see." The soldier said and stepped out from the line and tried to make his way forward.   
"No!" Another soldier barked out and grabbed him, pulling him in. "Stay in cover Jackson!"

It sat quite for a second until a awful noise let out. It was like a moaning noise, a mechanical moan. It was lound and hurt my ears but I couldn't cover them like everyone else was doing after dropping their guns to the ground. The sound was coming from what ever was walking among the top of the buidings.

It stopped after about ten seconds. The team pulled their hands away from their ears and stood there. One guy picked up his gun and walked forward and peaked out. I looked at his badges, he was a sergeant.

"Davison! Target front and center!" He hollard out.  
I looked down the line as the man in the back picked up his M19 Rocket Launcher he dropped and made his way up. He peaked out around the corner and using it for cover he shot off two rockets and stepped back in.

There where two explosions seconds after and the sergeant peaked back out.  
"No damage, didn't even leave a mark!" He said getting extremely nervous and stepped back in.

I tried to stand. My legs bent and hurt but I ignored it and I soon was able to get to a half standing position while using the wall as support. A soldier soon helped me up the rest of the way and handed me my gun.

I made my way down the line slowly and stepped out a bit and looked. It was huge and far advanced beyond us. It was machine. It had four legs that led up to the base of it. The base stood about a hundred yards above the buildings that it stood on. It had a something on the front that suck out a bit infront of it and had a upper platform above the base platform. On the upper part was what appeared to be a gun, easily five to six times my size. The thing itself from top to bottom was easily around one-hundred and fifty yards. I couldn't see the back of it from where I was, but it I could see about fifty to sixty yards of it in length. Two green oral lights lit up in the belly section of it and it had two front lights just in front of those that just flashed out ahead of it.

The thing let out another moan and I covered my ears. It soon quit like the previous one but this time afterward the base of it dropped doward toward the roof by the smoke stacks and the anti-air cannon. The crew had already ditched the cannon it seemed.

The main lights under it suddenly started flashing among the camp. I jumped back into cover as the light flashed in on me. I made my way up the ramp and started to head down to the other section of the camp, I was still abit slow as I started to get out of my numbness. I entered into the commanding quarters and headed stright, going toward the cots.

I entered in though a opening and was coming up to the ramp leading downward to the street again by the doors that lead into the main cot area when a marine down on the ramp corner began shooting. I came to a stop and rasied my gun from the sudden firing. He stopped firing when a purple beam stuck him in the face, droping to the ground dead.

The marine standing just above him on the upper level fired from his corner. He feed back in behind the wall just in time as a purple beam snaked past the corner and hit the ground.  
"Targets!" The soldier yelled out. "Their on the roofs, the'll have a flank on us in thirty!"

Gunfire broke out all around. Soldiers began shooting from other parts of the camp at the roofs. I turned and bolted off. I turned right for the nearest ramp as I re-entered the commanders quarters.

I came up to a squad of soldiers that where using cover along the ramp wall and upper section wall above them on the second platform. I headed down the ramp and stopped just before the bottom as a marine fired from the corners at the roofs. He was soon brought down by a series of blue oval shots. He dropped to the ground and started screaming and holding his side where the oval rounds hit.

"It burns!" He started screaming as he jumped up and stumbled out into the middle of the street.  
A series of pinkish needles stabbed into his body seconds later. He screamed as the needles flew and pierced into his body. A split second later he exploded. Chuncks of his body and armor flew our way and off elsewhere.

"Мы не можем остановить их!" A russian yelled out, saying that we couldn't stop them.  
I lowered my right hand that I used to block the flying chunks of the person. I gripped my rifle right in my left and and bolted out into the street. I bolted out and cut left and headed as fast as I could the twenty feet down. I came to a sliding stop as I opened up the store door and hopped inside, needles chased and collided into the walls, just missing me as I jumped in.

"Steve!" I yelled.  
"Thomas!" He hollard back. "Is that you?"

"Yes!" I announced back.

I found Steve crawling out from under his bed where he had taken shelter at.  
"What's going on!" He asked.  
"No time, we gotta go!" I barked as the lights went out.

Screams began letting out all over the camp. This was no longer a team fight but every man for himself at this point, I knew we had to get out of the camp and run.

I helped Steve up and we made for the door. The door wasn't shut all the way so I kicked it open. The door only went a bit before stoping and flying back. I kicked the door again as it went out a bit farther and came back in which I kicked it again. This time it flew open and a alien stood there, its gun on the ground, the door knocking it out of it's hand.

I quickly raised my rifle and fired a series of shots into it. After about nine or so round its shields dropped and the next few rounds went in. It stepped back as the rounds pierced into it and fell dead leaning up against the side of the medical tent.

"Lets go!" I yelled and stepped out and checked the area. It was clear along the street and the nearby roofs, the enemy still was in combat at the far end on the roofs though but posed little threat to us.

I turned left after exiting and came up to the ramp and peaked around. A alien with one of the glowing swords stood there and quickly looked around for new threats. A marine laid beneath his feet. The marine suddenly moved slightly.  
"You bastards!" He screamed out, a gernade in his hands that rested by the aliens feet. He poped the cap off and fliped the swich as the alien looked down at him.  
"Cover!" I yelled.  
A explosion filled the air and shapnel flew down the ramp corridor.

I peaked back around, nothing much was left.  
"Come on!" I barked and dashed up to the gate.

I looked around for the button that opened the gate and quickly found it. I hit it and the door started to open a bit. It stopped after about seven inchs. I hit the button again but nothing happened.

I dropped my gun and tried to pull the doors apart with my hands. I braced myself and pushed the two sides away from eachother, but it wouldn't move. I continued to try and push them apart until blue ovals rang down upon us, hitting the gate right beside my head, just missing me. I dropped to the ground for cover, grabbed my gun and stood up.

"Run!" I said to Steve and took off up the ramp, Steve behind me.

I went up the ramp and went stright, going for the commanders quarters, wondering if there was another way out from there, a secret escape for the general.

I turned the corner to enter his quarters and slid to a stop, falling backwards to the ground as I did so. A group of aliens shot down a marine as he charged at them. People lay dead everywhere, even General Owenson.  
"Back!" I barked out, causing the aliens to look our way.  
I stumbled back up to my feet and me and Steve re-entered the armory. We started down the ramp again but stopped and headed back up as we noticed a squad of aliens among the roofs overlooking our position.

We cut left this time and headed down the small and narrow ally. We emerged out in front of the commanding quarters. I pushed Steve into a small room and jumped in with him before the aliens noticed us. The room was only about five by five feet and had a window on the side by one of the ramps.

We stayed quiet, trying to hide in the dark cubby room in the night. I closed my eyes and found myself praying a bit in my head. I opened them to find nothing, or so I thought. Before our eyes one of them re-appeared out of mid air. It had been invisible.

I raised my Battle Rifle up and pulled the trigger. The gun made a funny noise and never shot, it jammed on me. The creature took a step forward and examined us a bit. The little covering of its mouth opened up and its mouth became visible. It made what appeared to be some form of smile. It suddenly rasied its gun up and shot Steve in the head, killing him instantly.

Steves body leaned over on mine afterward. My eyes where on Steve. His head was glowing a tad blue from the color of the round and the skin was being eatten away as I watched, starting to show his skull and brain. I looked away from Steve and back at the creature. Anger suddenly filled me and drowned out my fear. I jumped up and let out a yell as I attempted to spear the creature. The alien side stepped me. I felt its fingers grab hold of the back of my head and a thrust of momentem being added to my lurge as my face was slammed into the nearby concrete wall.


	9. Holding The Retreat

_November 1st, 2552, 1:13 AM_

**David**  
"I got it, I got it, do it!" I said to the coremen as I held the wounded soldiers ribs open so he could snip something inside and apply anti-viral foam.  
"There!" The medic said as he pulled his hands out of the soldiers waist, mine soon after.  
I looked at my hands. They where now covered in blood up to my wrist. I tried to whipe the blood off on my pants as best as I could but proved to be of little use.

I walked around the metal table and to the medic who sat at the desk typing away with his blood covered hands. He was reading up on the next man coming to us after this man was taken out and was reading the instructions on how he would need to operate on him. I was alittle supprised to see the medic had the newer military computers. The screen showed on the front but it also flipped around to the back to show who ever was on the other side the same thing that he was seeing. I looked over what he was looking at on the back.

Our next patient was missing his lower left leg and had taken some head injuries. His leg had been tightly bandaged on the front but he needed a brain operation, so we would be cutting his head open. The thought of cutting open someones forehead to get to their brain made me a bit shakey. The medic didn't seem to know much on how to do such an operation as he read through instructions on his screen and with all the wounded coming in, I could easily see why there where no properly trained people left for this type of operation. The things listed that where needed for the operation where things that I had never even heard of.

"Is he done?" A voice asked behind me.

I turned to find a basic marine, he was going around and collecting the treated wounded and taking them away for evac. I told him we where done with him and within seconds the wounded man was gone, on his way back to the safety of Turf.

"Dave." The medic called out, asking for me.  
I looked at him and replied.  
"When you arived, did command say anything about more reinforcements?" He asked me, as he continued to read things off his screen.  
"No." I answered. "I don't think there's anybody left for reinforcements.Why? Do you think the'll beat the second and attack?" I asked back.

He continued to read over his screen for a minute.  
"They've already lost." He finally said. "Our next man is patient number six-thousand-four-hundred and eighty-two. The second only consists of a few over seven-thousand."

He began tapping a pin against his small desk as he sat there and waited for the next man to be brought in. I could tell he was getting nervous for the possible upcoming attack, I really couldn't blame him though.  
"They didn't last very long for the number of men they consisted." He added as he folded his arms up on his desk and rested his head on his arms.

The man was begining to make me freak out a bit, talking as negative as he was. He seemed to have lost all hope in winning the war, I was right behind him though.

We sat around for nearly ten minutes waiting before he finally showed up. He was brought in on a cart. The medic and the man who brought him slowly put him on the table, which was still covered in the previous mans blood, but we had nothing to clean it with. I was told to stand aside while the medic and the other man applied something around the wounded man's head. I stood around for a few mintues while they did so. They finished and the guy took off with his cart.

I looked at the thing on him. It covered all of his upper head, where we would be opening in at. It then extened out across his face by little pices of metal, some pieces crossed here and there. At the bottom of the pirces of metal was a small, metal box. There was a small switch on it. I took it as the battery pack. The medic started making final preperations before starting by going over the instructions again and repeating everything he read to himself. I stood there waiting for an order from him on what to do. I sat around for a minute while he re-read everything.

"What the hell?" I heard the medic say.

I looked over at him, he seemed to be having trouble with getting his computer to work with him. I looked at the screen as it suddenly shut off without warning. I looked at the medic for a second and he looked at me before both of us turned our attention back to the screen as it shot back on and began running though a bunch of numbers. It soon shot back to the desktop, files began to rapidly open up and close at lighting speeds.

The medic got up and stepped back from the computer. I could tell myself what was happening, it was being hacked. It was obviously being hacked to fast to be a person. Files where opened, read, and deleted in a mere second. I knew it had to of been them.

"Hey! Someone's hacking my computer!" Someone down the way yelled.  
"Same here!" Another yelled back.  
Others also started announcing theirs was too. The entire camp seemed to be.  
"Someone radio in a technition!" A voice yelled out.

I looked back at the computer screen. Everything had been cleaned out of it, the screen sat there at the military desktop. It sat there for about about thirty seconds before symbols began scrolling across the screen, a virus was being put into the computer.

"Our firewalls." The medic started as he stared at the screen.

He soon looked over to me.  
"The finest military firewalls breached without even a warning of being hacked." He said amazed. "Not even a chance to open up a decoy route."

He looked back down at the computer screen for a second. He suddenly jumped back down in his seat in front of the computer.

He typed somethinging in and a box opened up on the screen. He began rapidly typing words and numbers, easily at about a hundred and fifty words a minute. He was typinging in commands for the computer, I guess to try to stop the hacker which now made little sence to me. I continued to stand there and watch as words and numbers flew across the screen as he typed and entered them. Another box soon opened and symbols began running though it, easily at a couple of thousand symbols a second. It was them. I began to realize that is wasn't a virus that was entered before, but possibly words, their words.

The medic continued to madly type away. He soon came to a stop as he hit the 'enter' button and sat there and waited for something to happen.  
"What did you do?" I asked.  
"I tried to trace the source." He answered as he looked over at me. "I figured if anything, maybe we could find their main base or something that may become useful. I'll get map and corridnets if it worked."

He turned his attention back to the screen and we sat around and watied.

The box containing the aliens words closed and a new one opened up. Words where suddenly typed though, but in English, our language.

"Im a better computer than yours and you combined." Is what it said.

The medic jumped up.  
"Fuck you!" He yelled at the screen and turned away.

"What does that mean?" I asked.  
He looked at me and then at the computer screen and the words on it.  
"It's artifical intellagence I would say, an AI that hacked our computers." He said, sounding rather discusted about the technological diffrences between us and them.

He looked over at the unconcious man on the table and stared at him for a second.  
"No operation." The medic said to himself. "Not without those instructions, he'll have to wait for someone else who can do it without them. That is if he somehow lives that long."  
He walked over to the man and began undoing the thing around his head. I stood there and stared at the words on the screen. The guy obviously knew much about computers, but he couldn't do anything. They seemed to know more about the things that we had created.

I looked over at the medic as he undid the thing, looking at the wounded man and at the other wounded people who laid on tables. Things on the front where obviously going bad, it was easy to tell that we where no match. Also seeing as how they where destroying what they could here ment that they probaly planned on advancing against us now that we attacked.

"This god damned counter attack." The medic started as he continued to undo the things, I looked over at him. "What has it done? What the fuck was command thinking? They should of just continued to let thim stay where they where, should of let them continue to take resources or what ever the fuck they where doing. But instead we attacked and set them off even further."  
He stopped for a second and looked at me.

"We should of fortifed the lines an-a-and waited to... see what would of happened." He added, I could tell he was starting to get extremely upset.  
I just stood there and looked at him. He had stopped undoing the thing and sat there, holding himself up with his arms as they rested on the table.

"We should of left them. They've sat there doing nothing for what... three or whatever months now. We should of learned more about their technology from the little bit of the captured equipment, should of studied more on... on... their anatomy. There... There out numbered in a world they've never been too. We should of let them run their supplise out or something. We just needed to learn." He stopped and chuckled a small bit as the thought of something. I stepped a bit over to the table where my gun rested and slowly put my right hand around the handle of my bayonet, keeping my eyes on him.  
"I just wish I would die. I don't want any more of this. If the gods where on our side, I would have them kill me." He added.

His right arm twiched a small bit, causing me to tighten my grip on my bayonet. I waited for him to snap under his thoughts and rush at me or try something, but he just continued to stand there in thought.

He finally moved as he looked back at the wounded man and began to finish undoing the thing on his head. I released my grip on the handle of my bayonet and relaxed a bit.

"Why did they just sit there?" He asked me as he continued to work. "Why didn't they just finish us off, like England?"  
I looked at him for a second, thinking if I should say anything to him.  
"I- I don't know." I finally said to him.

We became quiet with eachother for the growing minutes. I just watched him as he tried to figure out how to get the thing off and not cut open the mans head while doing so.

I started to open my mouth and ask him if I should go find someone who could possibly take the thing off when he started to slightly whistling something. I closed my mouth and listened to him as he whistled a bit louder. I tilted myself a bit and looked at his face and realized his mouth was shut. He also noticed it and looked up.

"Heads down now!" A voice over a speaker yelled suddenly.

I looked over at the medic as he used himself to cover the the wounded mans head.

The whistle quickly turned into a banshee as a squadon of longswords screamed by overhead and out to the front, throwing dirt off the ground in their direction with them.

I dropped to the ground on my stomach. A split second later a explosion let out, but it was much bigger than any I had heard before. It exploded and seemed to continue on, getting bigger. I looked up in time to see a minor mushroom cloud. The light of the explosion lit the lands everywhere around it in fire. Winds suddenly slammed our position, throwing dust and knocking things over everywhere. The force of the winds quit after about ten seconds as it all rushed though the camp, leaving dust in the air around us.

I coughed a lot as I breathed in the dust, others where as well all over the camp. I stood up to take a knee and looked around. I spotted the medic still leaning over the wounded man, disapearing for a second as a cloud of dust went in between us. I stood up and looked around some more. I could hear the distant snapping of gunfire now and something else. I found the mysterious sound to be allied dropships as a squadron of six Albatross flew in and landed nearby, blowing the dust out of the way in areas of the camp. I guessed that they where back to pick up more wounded, I was right.  
"Medical personal transport all wounded to the dropships for evac to Turf." The voice over the speaker ordered out. "All combat personal to defensive stations."

I glared around as troops made there way though the dust and to the trenches, guns in their hands and ready to fight. I looked back at the table where the computer rested, I had sat my gun up against it but couldn't find it. The small, light table had flipped over and thrown the useless computer to the ground. I didn't see my gun at first but found it caught in between two lower bars on the bottom of the table.

I jogged over and pulled my gun out from between the bars and examined it. The gun seemed to be fine and undamaged, except for some scraches among it.   
"I'm heading for my post." I said to the medic I worked with as I turned to meet him.  
He was still covering the wounded man. I walked up to him to make sure he was okay.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I slowly approached him.  
I noticed a small bump sticing out of his back. It looked like a handle. I walked up a bit closer for a better view and noticed it was a knife, it had been thrown into his back while he covered the wounded man.

I pulled the medic back slightly, causing his body to slide off of the man and to the ground dead. I checked the wounded mans pulse, it was slow but he was still alive for the moment. He was alive do to the medic shielding him with his body and that the table was heavy to the point it didn't fall over in the wind. I looked down at the dead medic, I took it as a sign after what he said and felt that maybe we could win this.

I turned my attention away from him and looked around. Medics where going around checking the wounded and taking them to the Albatross dropships. I knew I had to leave the man. The medics would find him and load him up soon enough and treat him a Turf if he pulled off a miracle and lived long enough.

I turned away and jogged off for the trenches and soon broke though the dust as I cut though the arillary line and started on down the hill for the trenches. I jumped into the second tench line, the one closest to me and cut right and made my way down the line and turned left to head down further to the front, passing another cutoff trench. I soon made it to the bottom and headed down the final trench a quarter of the way and came to a stop at my post by a M41 mobile that laid out on the grass a bit in front of the trench.

I stood there looking out at the open field before me and the roads that where a bit further out. There where no enemies yet but they where clearly on their way. More soldiers began to feed in among our line and sat there with the rest of us that had just fell in and the guards already stationed in the trench.

"Somethings coming!" Someone shouted out.  
I looked out as best as I could, squinting to see what he was talking about. I soon saw it come into view, it was yellowish-orange. It turned out to be a warthog rolling down the street on fire. It soon went off the road and began to continue its way toward us on the grass by the road. It exploded as the fires finally set off the fuel tank, way before even getting near the tunnel.

I stood there, half standing, half crouched, feeding in for the best cover that the trench provided, waiting. I could feel the sweet in my hands soaking the gloves that I wore. My face was also covered with it. I licked it off my lips and used my arm to whipe it off my face as best as I could and repositioned myself, waiting for them to bring their pretty little faces to us.

It wasn't long until flashes of gunfire could be seen in the darkness along the road running opposite with us far out in the distance. I soon was able to make out a convoy making it's way to the protection of our lines.

"Set it up! Grama four though eight by eight through tweleve!" Someone was shouting out nearby to my right.  
I turned around to find the artillary cannons turning in on the given grid markers for an attack.   
"Fire!" A voice soon yelled out.  
The ground shook under my feet as the artillary a top the hill started firing.

I looked back out at the convoy. It had gotten much closer and had cut off the road to make it's way up the grassy hill slope to get to the upper road, above the tunnel. They soon arrived at the top and started down the upper road, coming to a stop in front of us. There was six light combat warthogs, one tank, and a transport hog.

Soldiers poured out of the transport warthog in the dark and started their way up the hill to us. They where soon covered in light as the artillary rounds started hitting the grounds and the flashes lit the lands. There where nine of them, all mechinized soldiers of the second. I took my attention away as the passengers of the warthogs soon disembarked and started our way, six of them in all. The commanding officer who had been riding passenger in the transport hog stayed. I watched as he stepped out and began shouting stuff out to the rest of the crew. I was to far to hear what he was saying though but could see his mouth moving in the flashes of the light.

The tank and transport vehicle soon began their way down the road, the six combat hogs remained as the CO said some things to them. I stepped aside as a soldier jumped into the trench right next to me and to the ground, catching his breath. I looked back out at the convoy as others began pouring in, half expecting it to suddenly blow up from an attack.

After a minute of talking, the CO had hopped into a warthogs passenger seat and the convoy began to safely move. My though of safely moving away was shot down as the jeeps made a V-shape formation and started down the hill, back toward the front. People among our line started questioning what they where doing as the convoy now started off down the road for the front. Gunfire could be seen as the armored cavalry team engaged the enemy, the enemy had gotten much closer it seemed. We all watched as one by one the jeeps exploded, easily within fifteen seconds of eachother and within two minutes the convoy was gone.

I looked back at the mechinized soldier who sat up against the trench wall beside me, checking his supplise.  
"You!" I barked at him, he didn't look at me but knew I was talking to him. "What happened?" I questioned. "What do they have! What can they do!" I madly asked him.  
He sat there quite for a moment as he checked his ammo supplise, putting spare rounds in magazines and dropping a few rounds from the shaking caused from the artillary.  
"Defeated, everything, anything." He soon said, answering each of my questions in a harshly negative tone.  
I looked back out at the small fireballs of the jeeps that where about half the size of a candels flame in the distance, the arillary stopped and the white flashes among firey hills quit, leaving everything dark.

"They have infantry." The soldier said as he took off his helmet and pulled out some smashed food and tossed it in his mouth.  
"Yeah." I replied as I looked at him, waiting for him to say something else that maybe I wouldn't know.  
"The infantry we can handle somewhat, though they are still better equiped. They also have armor, which from what I have seen, fail in direct attacks against ours in a even engagement." He stopped for a second as he swallowed the chewy and mashed substance that he had been chewing on.  
He dug back into his pouch and pulled out more food and tossed it into his mouth and began talking again.

"They also seem to have mech like things, the kind technology that we can't stop." He stated. "We smacked the fuck out of them with that airstrike and still failed to get all of them."  
"What do you mean by mechs? How many?" Someone that was listening in asked.  
"Mechs." He said. "Giant pices of machine that are stories tall and carry around extreme fire power. They are what broke our assault and caused it to fail when we had almost won. Their numbers are fewer than ours but their technology makes up for that."  
He paused again as he tossed more food into his mouth before talking away while eatting again.  
"I say their mechs will be coming out through those torn up hills within ten to twenty minutes. There where seven of them at first, I saw four still standing after the air attack. I believe their infantry will be here within five, so be ready for them first." He finished, spitting out the chewy substance after he finished talking.

He grabbed his MA5B and got up some, enough to peak out over the trench.  
"There already here." He said.  
I watched him as me made his way down the trench line. He returned within four minutes.  
"Same thing I told the others. Fire a few rounds at anything that looks unusual when the firing starts on our side." He said as he past me and the others, making his way down the remaining right to tell the rest before making his way back to his position.

He feed into cover and rested his assault rifle on the top of the trench and took aim.  
"How do you know they're there?" I asked him.  
"Something I forgot to mention." He answered as he attached a E19 Bayonet to his gun. "Get ready to fire." He told me.  
I rested my BR55 on the trench and scanned the area for anything that looked unusual.

It was hard to find anything that looked unusual, compared to what was actually happening. I scaned everywhere and didn't find anything out of place, compared to a alien invasion. A burst of gunfire broke out from the mechinized soldier beside me, causing the entire line to erupt with a sudden spray of gunfire.

I dropped to the ground as I dodged something blue that flew at me from down by the road from out of nowhere. The line soon started fully firing, ours and the line above and behind ours in the second trench. I got back up and looked behind me. The blue orb had flown by me and hit the sloping hill behind me. I looked at where it had hit, the grass was being eatten away in the area, almost like acid.

"Plasma." The man said, causing me to look at him.  
He had stopped shooting and was looking at me.  
"That's one thing our medics learned from the wounded, their guns shoot plasma. It can eat right through the armor of a mechanized soldier." He finished, looking away from me and returning fire on the enemy.

I turned back and repositioned myself and my gun. Blue orbish lights raced out of nowhere from the bottom of the hill, by the road that ran parallel with us above the tunnel.

I took aim down my scope and checked my firing mode to make sure it was on semi-automatic. I took aim on a area where the blue orbs came out of nowhere from and shot at where I would of taken a body to be. I fired once to find my round hitting the ground. I fired a few more shots and finally got somewhere. A round hit the creature, causing it to light up a bit, revealing itself. A hail of gunfire soon flew in on the revealed creature, it flashed up some more and it's head soon dropped to the ground where it laid along the incline. Others laying on the ground around it where caught in the gunfire and killed quickly also.

I knelled down for cover as I started to reload my gun.  
"Energy shields." The man said. "They light up when something hits them. Their energy shielding takes a few rounds to get though. I believe they also recharge after awhile so don't let your target get away." He finished as he continued shooting his gun.

I finished reloading and got back up and returned fire down on the enemy, taking aim down my scope and shooting as close as I could to the target. I quickly shot off two-hundred and sixteen rounds, six magazines, and got around five or so kills. I knelled down and reloaded my gun again. I looked to my right and the few men that lay dead in the bottom of the trench, their flesh slowly being eatten away. I finished and again returned fire on the aliens.

"The'll never take this line like that!" Someone yelled out. "These things are nothing!" He finished. I continued shooting.  
"Their not trying to. It's a probe." The mechinized soldier said quietly as he reloaded. "Their waiting for those mechs and the main force now."  
I looked at him for a second and turned back and continued to shoot at the enemy.

I ducked down for cover as a volley of enemy fire rang at our part of the line. The firing on us stopped shortly after, along with a high pitched squealing sound and a small shaking of the ground. I peaked up just above the trench, expecting to see giant pieces of machine coming at us. I instead found nothing, except for the enemy troops down by the road.

The slight rumble quickly started to shake the ground around us on the right. I picked up the source and found the tank from before making it's way down the side of the trench to the front by us. I looked back at the enemy as it's machine gun came to life, hailing the enemy with death.

"Get the ammo off the track pods!" Someone yelled out.  
I looked back at the tank and noticed all the boxes of ammo that was tied down on the track pods. The ammo was safely store in fortified metal, which would help prevent them from exploding if it was shot. But the enemy shot stuff that could probaly eat though it. I continued to watch, just waiting for all the ammo to go off from a rain of enemy fire.

I watched as the ammo was removed from the tank's track pods and brought into the edge of the trench. Nothing had happened.  
"What are you doing?" The man beside me yelled, causing me to look at him. "Shoot!"  
I looked away and back down at the enemy line, it had shifted quit a bit to the right, now more in front of the tank. Now the infantry on the left side of the trench had a better angle of fire to hit the enemy, rather than the tank. Directly ahead of it, they had better cover. It was a wise move, meaning they knew somewhat of our fighting style.

"Set it by the other crate." A voice nearby said.  
I turned to find four soldiers carrying down a large box of ammo. I watched as they sat it beside another box, I had never noticed the box of ammo there before. They sat it down and entered the numbered code on the top of the box and the lid shot out away from the man. I turned away and fired the rest of my rounds in my magazine down at the enemy.

I checked my remianing ammo I had on me, counting four magazines. I went ahead and reloaded my gun rather than take ammo from the supply boxes.  
"How many of them do you think we got?" I asked outloud as I reloaded my clip.  
"I say about thirty or so." The man from the second said. "I say they have about fifty or so left down there, tha..." He stopped for a second.  
"What?" I called back to him, not recieving a answer.

I looked at him, he was peaking over the trench and looking out.  
"What's wrong?" I hollard out to him, thinking he didn't hear me over the gunfire.  
He looked at me for a second.  
"There here." He said.  
I peaked up over the trench to see what he ment and didn't see anything.  
"What's here?" I asked, then I heard it.

A distant mechanical groan, echoing though the hills and to us. There was a series of faint squeals.  
"Those mech things, there coming." The guy said.  
I stayed crouched in behind cover, peaking out over the trench as other continued fighting, not hearing the distant noise.

The tankers where the next to notice it as their machine gun quit firing. I looked over and saw the hatch pop up under the gun and a body slide up out of the seat, useing his arms which leaned out on each sides onto the tank to hold himself up. He was looking out ahead for a bit. He shouted something out, but I couldn't hear him over the gunfire. He slammed his left hand a few times onto the tank and the tank started to slowly reverse back up the hill as the guy slid back into his seat, slammed the hatch shut with him. I could tell that their sencors where probaly picking it up.

Others started to realize something was wrong as they peaked here and there as the tank retreated up the hill. I looked and noticed the man with the radio nearby yelling into it. I hadn't heard him yelling thing out though the radio when the firing broke out, I had forgoten about him. I could kind of hear him now that I was paying attention and focused in on listening.

"Repeat, over!" He yelled out. "Line, Last Hope has targets. Infantry, I say again, infantry. We are engaged and currently unavaible to move, over."  
He stopped as he listened to the reply.  
"Confim. Air assault and artillary, ineffective. We got them coming down on us. We got three of them reported on the way. Kill Later, I say again, Kill Later! Over!"  
He stopped as he listened in on the reply.

He soon finished his talking and turned some knobs on the radio and entered a number on the small keypad.  
"Kill Later confirmed. Suppressive bombardment shown ineffective. Moat, I say again, moat! Charlie six though Charlie eleven! Fire For Effect! Over!"  
The squeals grew ever louder, we could all tell something big was coming.

The ground shook under my feet for a second and then shook again and again, one after the other. I looked up and noticed the artillary on the hill firing one after the other.

I looked out ahead as the rounds detonated and the flashes filled the air, the flashes traveling down in a line running parallel with us and hitting nothing.  
"What the hell are they shooting at?" I asked aloud.  
The mechanized soldier looked up and at the bombardment.  
"Their moating." He said. "They know what's coming. The artillary team is trying to create a large break in the ground to keep those mechs from reaching us, just without the water."

I looked out at the wave of flashes as they started on the left and where making their way right. I looked down at the enemy infantry and raised my gun and fired a few rounds down. The enemy line seemed to be about half its size. I fired off my magazine and reloaded. I looked up at the flashes as they started to cross directly in front of us.

The flashes started to pass by and I could see objects behind them in between the hits, the mechs where there.  
"Cease fire and prepare to redirect!" The radioman yelled.  
I looked over at him, he was peaking just above the trench. His eyes where wide with fear, he knew what it was as well.

I looked back out at the flashes from the bombardment. There was a loud, almost mechanical moan that came out from the bombardment line. I knew it was the mechs that where making it. I watched as a green light rushed though the flashes and colided with the ground, exploding, and tearing though it and continuing along for a bit.

The flashes began to die down as the last of the rounds in the air made their landings. I looked at the trail of destruction the mech thing caused with the last of the flashes. It created its own moat across the ground, easily thirty to forty feet wide and three hundred yards long. Small fires ran along the sides of the moat it instantly created.

"Grid, Delta seven! Fire! Take that thing out now!" The raidoman yelled out.  
Within seconds the ground began shaking again as rounds where fired into the air.

Our line had nearly come to a complete stop of firing for a moment at the sight of the thing and its power, but picked back up after a second. I also had my eyes fixed on it and hadn't looked away and handn't returned to shooting. Seeing something so big and powerful on four legs was amazing, it truely showed the technological power they had.

Flashes of explosions started to go off around it. I caught another mech off to the left during the flashes, it had been hidden in the dark. I heard it let out a mechanical groan like noise as well and the green lighting under neath it came on. I took it that it was powering up its engines or what ever.  
"Bombardment ineffective! Get a locker down here now!" The radioman continued to scream.

I looked back out at the bombardment. Most the rounds where landing a bit off, a few landing near it. One round finally hit the side of it, causing the mech to drop downward and to the right a bit, but it was soon standing back up like normal.

I jumped a bit as a man jumped the trench by me and out into the grass in front of the trench and began bolting down the way a bit. He carried a lazer targeter for a lazer guided artillary strike.  
"Targeters here, swap ammo to smart rounds for guidance, over!"  
I watched as the man start making his way down.  
"Cover him!" I yelled.

The man soon came to a stop and knelled down and pulled the targeter up to his eyes, now in range. A few enemy rounds shot at him, missing. Most of the enemy was pinned down by us now that they had lost most of their units. But I was mistaken.

There was a flash of light right beside the man. The light swung at him, though him, and disapeared. The man continued to stay kneeled there with the targeter up at his eyes for a second. Soon afterward his body dropped to the ground in two pieces, his upper body rolling down the hill.

Bullets soon started flying all over the area of where the man had died, hitting nothing.  
"What the fuck!" Someone yelled out.  
I looked closely at the area where he had died. I noticed the grass moving here and there in parts and in other parts it wasn't. I looked more to the left and noticed this almost all the way down the line.

"Their crawling up!" I yelled.  
People began shooting along the hillside nearby and the enemy began to show as rounds hit their shields.

The enemy was to close to stop though. The enemy quickly got up and advanced on the trench. Lights snapped open in their hands, forming what appeared to be a blade. I heard screaming break out on the far left side and looked over to see the creatures stabbing people and jumping into the trench.

"Retreat!" The man beside me yelled as stood up, pulling me up with him.  
I looked out real quick, a snap of light appeared before my eyes, causing me to let out a scream and cover them. The sudden flash they created that close hurt and burned my eyes. There was a series of gunfire right beside me and the sound of something falling into the trench.  
"Are you okay?" The mechinized soldier asked me.  
I didn't answer and attemped to open my eyes.

"Come on!" He yelled as he grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him down the trench.  
I opened up my eyes again and was able to keep them open. I pulled my arm out of the grasp of his hand and followed along with him. We crouch walked up the virtical section of the trench to the second line. Trying to stay low enough so that the enemies shooting up couldn't see us from the road or where ever they where now.

We soon emerged and feed in on the second trench line. I sat up against the side for a second and rubbed my eyes. I was on the right corner of the line sitting there. I pulled up my gun and leaned around and fired a few shots, blue orbs soon raced back up at me from the trench below as I leaned back in and continued to sit.  
"There trying to come up the trench line!" I hollard out.  
Volleys of grenades began to go off on the first trench line as people in the second chucked them down. The grenades went non stop for forty or so seconds until everyone ran out.

I looked across the gap to the other trench that ran at a angel up the hillside to the top. The radioman was sitting there yelling out things.  
"Kill Later! My god, Kill Later now!" He screamed.  
I didn't know what the code ment and I cared less as long as it saved us.

I peaked up over the trench and looked out. The first mech was now looking straight at us, the other was walking toward the first. I looked back at the first and noticed the green light under it was getting a bit brighter. Light began to build around in the front of it at what I took for to be the gun. It was about to fire at us.  
"It's gonna shoot!" Someone yelled out. They realized it too.  
I ducked down into the trench for cover and closed my eyes. Heat suddenly rushed by and burned the back of my neck. I let out a scream in pain. There was an explosion and everything went quiet.

I opened my eyes and saw the wood lining of the trench in front of me. I was still alive. I turned my head to look around and my neck started to burn on me.  
"My neck!" I cried out.  
I felt someone grab both my shoulders to keep me still. A finger soon was lightly moving among the back of my neck, getting closer to the burn and quit when I twiched from it.

"Your skin absorbed some of the heat." The mechinized soldier said to me. "But don't worry, it's no worse then a sunburn."  
I took his word for it and turned my head. My neck burned but I focused it out. I looked back at the top of the hill. The artillary cannons that had been sticking out over it where now gone and nothing but smoke and small patches of fire where visible. The shot had struck just under the top of the hill and taken it all out as it pressed on, taking outour atillary and possibly the base camp ontop of the hill.

I picked up a new series of snaps to my right and overhead a bit. I looked up to find a squadron of nine Pelicans slowlying flying overhead at not even ten miles per hour, all shooting off their AV Missiles and machine guns at the enemy machines. I watched as they fired. Mirages could be seen along the sides of the Pelicans as the missiles fired off. Like looking far out ahead on the road during a hot day. Firey colored light lit up the side of the Pelicans as they fired.

"Up the hill now!" Someone yelled out, other began yelling to move afterward.  
I got up and made my way up the trench and soon up to the top as I ran into the smoke, stepping over chunks of metal and other things. The smoke blew out of the camp as a squadron of five Albatross came in and landed nearby. People began issueing the retreat and made way for the dropships.

I came to a stop and waited for the mechanized soldier I had come to know make his way up. He soon emerged over the hill and came to a stop nearby me. He looked at the Albatross and back at me.  
"What are you doing?" He asked "Go get on the dropship now!" He ordered.  
I stood there for a second. He soon pushed me away in the direction of the dropships and turned back to the top of the hill.  
"Second, fall in!" He yelled out.  
He looked back at me for a second.  
"Order are orders, we stay." He said. "Smiling at death, that our motto." He finished.  
Mechanized soldier came and set up firing positions in with the debris that laid around, waiting for the enemy to come over the hill.

I looked at the top of the hill, a few men stood at the top shooting down before turning around to head back. A series of plasma shots hit one of them as he turned.  
"Now!" The mechanized soldier yelled.  
I looked at him for the last time, turned, and bolted off for the dropships.

I soon ran up the ramp of one of the dropships and into the bay, a few marines right behind me.  
"Where good!" A girl yelled out and the ramp began to shut.  
There where no seats so we all stood there, holding onto the handles on the roof. I looked out at the mechanized soldiers as they took up cover in the wrekage and prepared themselves for their fate.

The door soon fully shut and dim red lights where all that lit up the bay. The engines powered up and we soon started to lift up off the ground and into the air. Tears started to fill my eyes slightly for the loss of the men we left behind, but it was their decision.

We all sat there quiet, mainly wondering if we would still make it out. I was quiet in thought, thinking to myself about how yet another famous military troop was taken from existence.


	10. Uniting Front

_November 1st, 2552, 2:40 PM_

**Thomas**  
The world around me bumped often and worsened my headache which alerted me that I was still alive and coming to. I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to open them, not knowing what I may find or see. I kept them shut until I noticed the voices around me. I cracked my eyes open to get a glimpse. Boots lay before my eyes, they moved a bit here and there. I instantly noticed that I was in mechanized armor but didn't have my helmet on and also that I was laying on a metal flooring on my right side, which was numb. I leaned my head back and made out a vehicle, a transport hog.

"He's moving." A voice said above me.  
I looked up to find a man leaning over me a bit, he slid his feet in closer to him and out of my face. I glanced around and found three other people looking at me.  
"Wh-Where am I?" I asked the man as I flipped over onto my back.  
"Mexico." He answered as he sat up straight. "Go ahead and take a seat." He finished.  
He exteneded out his hand and helped me up toward the seat row. I sat beside him.

I looked out from my seat. I counted out four transport hogs in front of ours and two behind ours. I also noticed ATVs, which traveled alongside the convoy at the very front and back on each side. From what I noticed from the ones in the front, a person rode on the back of each one with a M41 Machine Gun, the belt of ammo hanging out of the gun and in their laps. I had never seen anyone use, or even with a M41 without a tripod or stationary stand before.

I looked back at the others, they all still had their attention on me, as though they where waiting for me to do something. I figured they where waiting for me to start asking questions, which I had plenty of.  
"Go ahead." One of them said to me so I did.

I asked many questions. I asked what happened to Turf and how I got to Mexico, why I was in Mexico, what happened to the aliens, and other things. The man beside me answered. He told me that they had taken the entire camp, the inner command station and free station sectors. They then went though all the wounded, shooting some and leaving others. He added in that everyone in the convoy where all people from Turf, except the first vehicle.

He continued on about Turf, saying that the aliens had gone though and killed selected targets and left the others. After which they simply left. He told me that after awhile, Albatross dropships soon arived to drop off wounded personal, not knowing that the camp was raided. Notification was soon sent out and pelicans from MCAS Yuma where dispatched to Turf. From there we where taken back to Yuma, soon after we left into Mexico via the convoy just after the alien advancement was destroyed.

He told me that members of the Brazilan and Mexican armed forces, along with the bulk of the 15th Airborne where on their way to America and the two sides ran into eachother during the night when I asked him about it.

We stopped talking for a moment as our convoy came to a stop. I stuck my head out though the rails that travled from the back rests, up over our heads and to the back rests on the opposite side. I noticed a group of soldiers, maybe sixteen or so talking to the driver and inspecting the passengers in the first vehicle. We where at a picket line. They soon let them though and continued to let all of us go without inspection. I checked their insignias as we went by, they where members of the British armed forces. The hog bumped a bit as it came off the street and into dirt. I looked and realized that the street was destroyed from here out and that the land was nearly nothing but dirt now and destroyed hills, I took it as where the fighting had taken place and noticed some smoke ahead.

The group started talking up again about Turf and the aliens. They mentioned something to me that they had been talking over a few hours ago, saying they where starting to believe that aliens may be here to actually help. I instantly questioned their theory. They started their answer with a question, asking me if I had seen any of the green, ball like creatures during the fighting.

I started to think back but had a hard time remembering what happened. It took me a minute to remember and realize what he was talking about. They told me that the aliens had been fighting the small green creautes in Turf, meaning they weren't a alien of their race. They then made a theory about the four month wait, the amount of time the aliens sat in the eastern states and did nothing until we attacked, and said that they may of been busy dealing with the things, trying to get rid of them.

I thought over everything that we had been talking about and thought back to the information I had gotten back in Antarctica. Max said he believed that the aliens where of a non hostile nature also, way before we had even found out about them. The papers had also mentioned about the virus being a acutal physical form that opened up a person and got inside of them while they would be most unaware of it. The papers also said that the aliens had executed certain members and spared the others. I began to figure that if they where executing certain people, then the people they where killing where those infected and sparing anyone who wasn't.

I continued to think and asked them counter questions about why they came in such a manner, the take over of England, and other things. They answered back with questions that made since and I could see how they could be viewed as a non hostile nature in ways, but I still refused to believe they where friendly, no matter what anyone else thought.

We talked on slightly about it and a few other things, only stopping to watch a small squadron of Pelicans pass diagonly over our convoy and off over two giant dirt hills. I had turned away without noticing but quickly turned back. I realized that they weren't hills, but I couldn't tell from where I was. I got up and made my way down by the driver and where there where no bars to keep me from fully standing. I put my hands on the back of his seat and stood up completely, the driver glacned up at me for a second and then looked away.

My eyes where amazed. The things I had taken for as two hills at a quick glance where actually the four legged things we that we encoutered at Turf. They laid on their sides, defeated and destroyed. I also noticed the rest of the destruction that laid around from the battle. Tanks and jeeps sat there on fire and in pieces, bodies of both human and alien lay dead everywhere. There where other weird kinds of things that where there, which I took for to be alien weaponry. I actually rechgonized some from my fighting in England with the British and Russians while fighting them before they over ran everything. There where also allied infantry walking out among the wreckage and checking everything, easily a few hundred of them.

I looked out ahead and could see people walking around far out in the distance and a mobile camp that easily streched out to about a mile in width, there where also some near by units on the path of our convoy. I continued to stand there as we came up and passed a squad of mechanized soldiers from Brail that where on their way down toward the picket line. I continued to stand as we came up on another mechanized squad a bit further ahead. I checked their insignia as we passed to find out that the small squad was from the 15th Airborne, my unit. They where making their way for the camp.

I looked back as we passed them. One of them leaned over and whispered something to another one I took it for. He soon looked back and waved his right arm out, holding his gun in his left. I looked away and back at the others and asked if my helmet was on board, they said I was loaded on without one. I thanked them for the information they had given me before and prepared myself to hop out.

I warned the driver just before I stuck my right foot on the top of his seat. He cussed at me as I did so, glancing up and back out at the hog in front of us as I used the bars to pull myself up a bit further and onto the side. I glanced around real quick to make sure I wasn't going to jump into a group of soldiers and noticed that everyone was looking at me, even those in the hog in front of us where watching with interest.

I jumped off and landed on my feet, breaking out into a semi run on landing as I tried to stay up but ended up falling face first into the dirt and small rocks. I stopped on my stomach and looked back up at the convoy. It continued on, not even slowing down after what I did.  
"You crazy mother fucker!" A voice yelled out.  
I looked at the hog I had been in. The driver had his head sticking out the side and was screaming his head off at me, quickly stopping for a brief second as he looked back ahead to make sure he wasn't going to rear end the hog in front of him before returning his attention to yelling at me.

I watched the convoy continue on until the mans yelling was to faint to hear. I turned away and back down the way at where the others I saw eariler where. They where all jogging up to where I was. I got up to a knee when they arived, one of them pulled me up to my feet.  
"Are you alright Thomas?" He asked. "And I don't mean by the fall, but with your time away from the outfit."  
"I'm fine." I replied to the person as I glanced among them.  
I glanced around everyone else, they didn't seem to excited to see me. I looked among them and stopped at the man who had helped me up.  
"Ryan right?" I questioned.  
"That's right sergent." He said chuckling a bit.  
He patted me on the shoulder and turned to face the others.  
"Everyone meet Thomas." He said among the others.  
Most of them just gave a nod or a stared though their visior.  
"This is third squad. The unforgiven and uncaring squad." Ryan stated. "In other words, they give out hell and take it back as well. Anyway, lets walk."  
We turned and started heading off toward the camp.

I started the conversation between us with a question, by asking him how he had been since he was shot back in Antartica by Max's guards. I was supprised to hear him say that he was never shot, that one of the guards shot at him and the round pinged off his armor and knocked him to the ground. He told me he played dead until he figured he could get the jump back on them. Which by then he hadn't realized that me and the ODST soldier had cleared them out.

He then asked me where I had gone. He had gotten up and only found the ODST soldier and figured I was part of the wounded. He also figured I had been loaded up on the Pelican when the medical evac arived. He hadn't noticed I wasn't on the Pelican until they where almost out of Antarctica. I got a laugh out of it a bit. He was told Max had taken off and that another military team was coming in soon, he had figured they would find me. Hearing this made me a bit mad also, after what I had gone though and not realizing that more allies where on the way and could of gotten me.

We continued on walking for a bit in silence, thinking things over.  
"What of the EWCU?" I asked him, breaking the silence.  
"What of them?" He asked back.  
"Better put, what of the aliens? I'm sure that will sum it up for me."  
"The aliens?" He asked back again, looking at me for a second and turning his attention back out ahead of him.  
He held off my question for a bit as we approched some guards that hung around the outside primeter of the outter camp tents.

They questioned us a bit and inspected us some before letting us cut in though the tents and into the camp.  
"Well. We realized that they are only attacking larger nations around the world, mainly EWCU nations. Except for the recent fight here in Mexico, and the capturing of Engalnd. America is the only WWMF nation attacked. They had started off with India and Africa in the EWCU and just recently and suddenly appeared out of nowhere and attacked France, China, and Russia. Russia is currently holding its own against them do to the size of the nation and the number of people they can throw into the slaughter, as for China I hear it's about to be completely taken. Serves them right for invading Brazil, Mexico, and into America."

We stopped by some tents as a combat warthog passed by down the row before continuing on.  
"The EWCU has fallen apart. Their government no longer has control of it's nations and command over its military. Not that where ones to talk, where right behind them." He finished.  
"So this means that the EWCU nations are acting as independent nations?" I asked.  
"Yes." He answered, grabbing a mechanized helmet that rested on a box of crates as he walked by, pushing it into my chest afterward. I took it.  
We continued to walk in silence for a bit again. I went ahead and put on the helmet.

We continued cutting though a maze of tents and dirt roads until we finaly came up to a large open patch of land that lead out tents on the far side. Here Pelicans sat on standby and other things. Remaining jeeps and tanks sat here as well as masive amounts of contained fuel. We walked silently as we cut though areas, getting griped at by a few grease monkeys working on Pelicans here and there.

We soon re-entered the tents again and made our way though row after row of tents and people until we finally came out to what appeared to be the commanding quarters. There was a large tent ahead of us, easily thirty yards wide and fifteen feet high. It was the commanders quarters. We entered in.

We entered into the bigger part of the tent, a entrence led off to the side sections on the left and right sides. A large table sat in the back and small tables where all aligned up along the sides, gapping by the side entrences. People sat typing at computeres, talking over com systems, and mapping out things. We walked to the back by the large table.

Ryan walked in behind and sat down in the seat, a mexican soldier walked up and layed down a bunch of papers in front of him. I looked around real quick and then at Ryan.  
"You..." I started, but was interupted by Ryan.  
"Third in command." He answered, knowing I was going to ask if he was in top command.  
"Oh... That's nice." I answered.

I glacned around the desk. It had a computer that I had never seen before and took it as a new one that had probaly been made before the alien attacks. There was tons of papers laying around on the table, pens, empty drink containers and a few bullets layed around on it too. A equipment belt sat on the edge. I also made out what I took as a map that was attached to the table, most of it hidden by the stuff on top.

I looked back at the belt and the words written on it, they read 'Steel, T.' It was my name, my belt. It took me a second to catch on as I grabbed it and opened up one of the pouches to find it empty. I looked at Ryan, he was reading over some printed requests.  
"The papers inside, i've read them." He said. "Well be talking about that in a minute."  
"How did you get it?"  
"The Russians." He answered. "They found it as they where going to reinforce Max's position. They read it and know, it's also why they swiched sides. They found out that Max was a false and contacted us. The squad you meet up with was from that battalion obviously."  
I looked back down at the belt and sat it back down shortly after, astonished that the Russians had found it.

Ryan soon wrote something down on a piece of paper and stood up. I looked up at him as he walked over to me a bit and sat on the edge of the table, facing me.  
"Говорите на русском языке. Мы не можем впустить никого, здесь знают об этом только все же." Ryan said to me in Russian, asking me to speak in Russian so no one would understand what we where going to talk about, I could tell it was about the papers.

He asked me to tell him everything I had leared about the papers over time and everything that happened before I linked up with the Russians. I told him everything as he listened carefuly. We talked for a bit, third squad wispered a few things here and there about us as we did so. After about ten minutes I had told him everything, including things about my time in England as it fell.

He got up and walked back to his seat and stopped, standing there in though.   
"Third squad." He said out, the team leader replied. "Rally the troop for briefing." He said to them.  
Third squads team leader replied, saluted, and started out, the others behind him.  
"You know the briefing. Get supplise while I do so with the others, where moving out." Ryan said to me.


	11. Pressing Toward Victory

_November 3rd, 2552, 3:17 PM_

**Thomas**  
We continued though the warm air and soft ground slowly and uneasy. Gunfire could be heard everywhere upahead as our force advanced through the swampy and junglish area. I walked ahead of the convoy by Ryan, others either rode in the jeeps and tanks or walked alongside the convoy.  
"Full stop!" Ryan yelled out.  
"Stop!" A voice behind us shouted out and continued on down.  
Figures where moving ahead and coming at us, it was the scouts we had sent out ahead.

The scouts made their way to us, stopped in front of Ryan and saluted.  
"What's happening up ahead?" Ryan asked the scouts.  
"Major, sir. We located a EWCU force ahead, their engaged with some kind of lifeform sir. They where extremely hard to notice but they are little, green, ball like creatures that slither around. There is also no communication from EWCU force. The EMP surrounding the area is still blocking out radio communication. We can still get cavalry units though without issues."  
"Did you identify the EWCU force?" Ryan asked.  
"Yes Major, their Australians."

Ryan looked off out ahead as best as he could. The fog created by the humidity and the lack of light do to the tall and dence trees made it hard to see to far out from the already cloudy sky.  
"Captain Steel." Ryan said as he turned to face me.  
"Yeah." I replied.   
"Take teams Able though Browning and cut up more to the right. Keep in search of the structure and send out messengers if you find it."  
"Yes sir!" I replied and saluted.  
I turned away and made my way to the nearest soldier and told him and a few others nearby to rally up the teams for me. Within a minute they where assembled at the front with me.

I turned and looked among them. I guessed their numbers at around thirty. Ryan had the rest one-hundred and fifty-seven soldiers of the fifteenth.  
"We don't know if the Aussies are friendly or not, we haven't recieved any contact from them. Be careful on your advance. Your a Captain now, act like it." Ryan said to me.  
I replied and signaled my men to follow. I started off, heading right and a bit forward. I heard Ryan yell out to the armored cavalry and within seconds they where on the move.

I hated this part of Brazil. The soft ground, hot air, and lack of light made me feel uneasy. We where in search for the structure I had seen before, the one with the gargoyles head on it. I knew where it was but had a hard time recognizing the ground going back the other way to help me find it.  
_  
The help of the unexpected will never be enough and will be realized as humanity begins to fall. _Was the first line in the prophecy paper.  
We looked at the aliens as being the upexpected help, seeing as that was what Max's other papers spoke of them as protectors. England had fallen, America and China where now as well.  
_Hidden by dence rainfall and jungle, a gargoyle will show the way. _Was the second line.  
We believed it was the next step in solving out everything and winning the war. It wasn't raining now, but we knew that it was there, even if one part of it was off.

"So, what's this gargoyle thing where looking for supposed to do?" Someone asked out.  
It came from my right, from one of the squad leaders that walked beside me, in front of the grunts.  
"End the war hopefuly." I said.  
"And where trusting that on some prophecy right?"  
"Yeah." I answered.  
"Captian, have you ever meet a medium that was right about anything?"  
I didn't answer.  
"See what I mean. We'll come all the way out here and learn that the war does end, just for us though." He finished.  
We where all quiet for a bit as we walked on. We continued slowly until a gernade flash was spoted a bit ahead, followed by muzzle flahes as well. We jogged up ahead and took cover along a small hill incline. The firing stopped.

I laid there on the small incline with the others. I learned up a bit higher and looked over the top of the top and at the jungle before us. Trees blocked most of the area ahead and a group of somewhat good sized rocks where by them. It was a good spot for a firing squad in the area.  
"Able." I said out.  
A man right beside me looked over his shoulder at me and replied.  
"Take your men down the right some more and prepare to give us some covering fire on the flanks. Move it."  
He got up to a crouch and moved down the line, tapping on his mens backs to get their attention. They where soon out of sight as they headed down a bit more to the right.

I looked back at the position and thought out our options for the second.  
"Alpha. Light gernade just before the trees." I ordered out.

I sat there as the gernade was tossed out and landed about ten feet in front of the pocket of trees and rocks. It soon went off and threw bright glowing particals everywhere, sticking the the trees and ground and lighting up the area around the trees and rocks. Soldiers instantly came into view as they looked over at our position and noticed us with the little bit of light that streached out and showed us.

Gunfire poured out on our position from theirs as they began to move around and find cover against us in the trees and rocks. I pulled myself in some more, others began shooting back at the Aussies. I rested my MA5B along the top of the incline, took aim, and fired. I fired off half a clip before stopping and pulling myself in for better cover on the slanted incline.

"Parker!" I yelled out.  
The soldier made his way up to me along the line.  
"Get down the right flank and find Able and direct them on the flank!"  
He replied and was soon off.

I repositioned myself and began to fire again. I fired off the rest of my clip at the Aussies. We wheren't making any success against them, their cover was to great at this angel. I curled back in and reloaded my gun. The nearest soldier to my right took a round in the visor and got lucky, it didn't go though. He dropped his gun and put his hands up at the cracks for a second and then started to take off his helmet.

I watched as he took it off and sat it aside.  
"Put your helmet back on!" I yelled at him. He looked at me.  
"I can't see out of it now!" He yelled back as the soldier behind him took a round in the ruber section of his armor by his arm.  
The man started yelling at the top of his lungs. The man I had yelled at rolled over and tried to examine it.  
"Medic!" He yelled out as something landed near the top of the incline by him.  
I looked at it for a second. "Grenade!" I yelled, but it was way to late.

The grenade went off a few feet from the man. His body shot off to the right some, his feet now at the bottom of the two foot slanted incline and his body pointing out away from us. Part of his upper left head was gone, showing what was left of his brains and other things.

I looked away and down the right line.  
"God damnit! Able, Parker!" I yelled out.

I looked down the other side of the line and back out at the enemy postion. One body laid dead on the ground while about seven of our guys did along the line. I called out a head count from the team leaders and learned I had seventeen men left with me, not counting the seven from Able and Parker himself.  
"Retreat!" I yelled out. "Retreat down the right!"  
We all started to get up into crouching positions and move down the incline, shooting down at the enemy as we went.

I looked at the enemy as we moved down the incline, cutting though trees, swampy water, and some high grass. I caught them moving down the right with us on their side, trying to prevent us from flanking. We went for about twenty more seconds until they started to freak out and jump around some. Bullets flew in among them from their flank, they had walked right into the path of Able and Parker.

Within seconds they where dead, relieving all of us. I ordered everyone to rally with the others. We approched on Able's position, stopping to shout out that we where coming in and waiting for a reply. I stepped up to the top of the incline. Down here the incline slopped down about six feet or so to Ables position, which was masked by darkness.

I spotted three men on the incline facing toward the enemies old position, they where the shooters. I slowly took a step down on the hill and slipped, sliding down it and stopping ontop of a dead body. I got up rather quickly and looked around as Able's leader approched me.  
"Green fuckers. They got most of us. Just the four of us remain, and the man you sent."  
"The little ball things?" I questioned.  
"No, not little. Green creatures, similar to a persons form. Extremely powerful and a bitch to put down."  
I had the man show me one of the bodies. I looked over the one he pointed out. I had a hard time making out smaller features of it in the darkness but could easily tell it was shaped like a person. I took it as the form they took on after infecting someone.

I stood back up and called everyone forward as we started to advance more. We started to cut left a bit to make up for the extra flank we took. We soon cut out into a more open area and continued on. The ground shook slightly and we slowed down and took cover in by some trees and waited in the dim light.

A hostile tank soon came into view as it made it's way toward us. I whispered commands to a few nearby soldiers and jumped out as the tank started to pass us. We jumped up on the track pods and got up by the hatch and poped it open. One of the soldiers tossed in a grenade and we jumped off onto our stomachs on the ground.. The grenade detonated, killing the driver and gunner inside.

The dirt kicked up around me, a light snapping noise happened every second. Someone let out a scream. I looked around and noticed a turret on a incline over looking us.  
"Eighty milimeter gun!" I yelled as it shot off a round every half a second, a slow rate of fire.  
Me and the rest of us broke off for the trees, a few of us shooting at the gun as we went.

I heard a loud snap and something crash to the ground nearby. I looked off to where the sound came from and caught a allied Wolverine tank driving over a tree. It's one-hundred-thirty milimeter cannon turned in on the gun as it fired on the tank. The cannon fired, striking, and blowing up the gun nest. Infantry broke out though the trees behind the Wolverine armor.

I had just gotten up when another tank came into view and targeted our position. The gun pointed at us but didn't shoot. The main tank body swung around to face us and the tank approched, infantry soon came into view as they followed it, they where allies.

The tank came to a stop by us and the hatch behind the main gun poped up. A man pulled himself up and used his arms to hold himself us.  
"Ryan sent us to assist the flank." The tanker said. "We found and followed the bodies."  
I acknowledge and told him to take point and that we would follow with the others.

The others came out and rallied in with everyone else and the tank began to move out, me and the other infantry behind it a bit. We went on for a bit without any resistance, but that ended as a rocket slammed into the side of the tank. The tank made a funny noise afterward but continued on.  
"Cover!" I yelled out.

We all headed to the left and into cover behind the nearby trees, the tank came to a stop and the cannon started to turn to the left. It stopped as it faced out at the trees and shot its cannon. There was a series of crackeling and a bang as the round went off. The crackleing was the sound of two trees falling over, creating their own bang as they hit the ground.

"Able though Browning, move though the trees and find the enemy position, neutralize it!" I ordered. "Everyone else continue on down and circle around the flank!"  
Everyone began to scatter out as they carried out their orders. I went with the team though the trees. We continued on until we cut though into a opening, a incline ahead of us, a fallen tree laying on it. Ahead of the incline was a structure.

We feed in behind the incline and fired at a few enemies postioned around the structure.  
"Parker!" I called out. He made his way to me. "Go find Ryan, tell me we found a structure and bring him here!" I told him.  
He acknowledged and started on his way, Browning also going with him.

We sat there and waited, firing at the enemy from the top of the small hill. I caught movement in a tree by the structure and took aim. I noticed it to be a sniper. I kept my sight on him until he turned our direction. I opened up on him once he did, spraying him with thirteen rounds and knocking him out of the tree.

I took my aim and shot at group of Aussies running though the open to get to a diffrent position. Bullets flew in everywhere at them from our lines. Soldiers in the squad began to drop to the ground. Six of them made it to their destination, five didn't.

I caught movement in a tree a bit of a way out and took aim on it. A creature suddenly jumped out of it and began swinging among the branches at us, like a monkey, but it wasn't a monkey, it was one of the more evolved viral creatures. The thing moved though the trees with incredible speed and swung off a branch and right into our line. A few soldiers got up to try and get out of the way.

It smacked a soldier as it landed with its arm, knocking him easily ten feet back though the air. I looked at the thing. It's left arm was a acutal arm while it's right wasn't quite, more of a tentacle thing. It didn't appear to have eyes or anything and it's head was kind of snaped back. Bones where sticking out of it's right leg and the thing had a foul stench, like a dead body that had rotten for a month or two in its own urine.

The thing thing suddenly swung its left arm and smacked another soldier across his visor, breaking it instantly. The soldier did a five-forty before he hit the ground and letting out a scream. Me and everyone else started to take aim on it. The thing suddenly jumped into the air, high into the air and landed ontop of another soldier, knocking him to the ground. The creature let out some kind of screeching growl in the mans face, causing the man to panic and yell. I pulled my gun up and took aim on it and fired, spraying it with twenty-two rounds.

The creatures arm flew off from the impact of the rounds and other chunks of it's body did as well, the rest of it fell onto the man. He soldier threw the body off of him and rolled away from it. One man slowly approched it and was soon standing above it. He kicked it and the remaining arm shot up. Its tentical like arm wrapped around the mans leg.

The creature jumped up to its feet. Suddenly the thing was standing and the man was haning in the air a bit. I pulled my gun up as the creature swung the man around and hurled him though the air and into a tree, killing him on impact. I fired, unloading the rest of my clip into it. It dropped to the ground again and we waited for it to jump up, but it didn't.

One man approched it again and got above it, putting two shotgun rounds into its head.  
"Thats right you piece of shit!" The soldier yelled down at the thing just before a gun was slammed into the top of his helmet, knocking him out.  
A squad of EWCU rushed into the area on us.

I started to reload my gun but didn't have time. I dropped it and pulled my pistol out as a enemy rushed at me. I shot at his visor, putting three rounds in it but not getting though. He got close enough that a pistol whip to it did the trick. I dodged as I slammed my butt of the pistol into his weakened visor and though to his face. His legs flew out from under him and he landed on his back. He brought his hands up to his face, screaming.

I took aim on a enemy in a grapple hold with a allied soldier. I pulled the triger and shot the Aussie in the rubber part of his armor, going though and hitting him. The allied soldier took the chance to finish the weak enemy by breaking the graple, grabbing the side of his head and lower neck and snapping it. I turned around and found a EWCU soldier bolting back over the hill toward the structure, I shot the remianing ammo in the clip and missed.

I picked up my assault rifle and looked around, there where no more EWCU soldiers in our position. I quickly reloaded and went to the top of the hilla nd stopped and took aim on the retreating soldier. He quickly dropped to the ground dead as one of the creatures jumped down on him and and killed him, a explosion killed the creature. I traced the shot and noticed a tank a bit of a way out, it had shot the thing with it's cannon.

I looked around as a squad of about twenty infantry poured over a hill and advanced on the structure, it was the team I had sent around on the flank. I ordered the squad to hold and treat the wounded, I made my way toward the structure, gun at the ready. I came up on a metal piece that extended out, I circled around it. Three Austrilians bolted out from a open entrence on the ground and out in front of me. I shot at them. They where put down by mine and allied fire.

Soldiers poured in and entered the structures lower part and cleared it out. A EWCU soldier stepped out on a ledge that suspended in midair out in the open. He had his hands up as he came out but was shot down anyway. The soldiers soon exited out of the lower section and made their way around to the other side.  
"Set up a perimeter around the area!" A voice ordered out.

I tracked the voice and found a team of about fourty infantry moving in on the structures near opposite side, Ryan one of them. Other infantry began to head back out into the trees and set up a defence.

I moved up and rallied and meet with Ryan and his troops.  
"Get ready to secure the inside Captain!" He said to me on the move.  
Ryan and a few other soldiers climbed up and onto a side that extended around the building, just below the suspended floor that stuck out from the inside. Ryan made his way along the sides of the structure and to the suspended part and peaked in as best as he could.

"Teachs forward." He suddenly said and a few soldiers walked by and climbed up and in.  
I stood below on the ground watching.  
"Hold the defences Captain." He ordered me and climbed up and in.

I turned back and called in the nearest squad of soldiers. I ordered them to organize a defence around the area by having the tanks form a triangle and having the soliders do connect the dots with the thanks. They where soon off and yelling out everything and getting people organized. I stopped another group of soldiers and had them round of the wounded and bring them in the perimeter.

I made my way back to my assigned team. There where no wounded, only dead. Medics where treated the wounded EWCU troops. I ordered those that sat around to help gather wounded from around the area and bring them in. They where soon off.

I made my way over to the dead creature and examined it as best as I could. I noticed the thing had three big toes on it's feet and quickly realized that it was once a alien. I got up and left the thing after looking over it and made my way back toward the structure. Ryan poped his head out from around the corner wall and spotted me, waving me forward.

I jogged up and stopped below him a bit out.  
"Gather the wounded, load them up on the jeeps, and prepare everyone to move out. We advance toward victory." He said smiling.


End file.
